Eagles Flying Above the Storm

Eagles ride updrafts,

On airy sky trails,

Over the clouds,

Beyond rain and gales."

Elijah saw the storm squall whipping the waves. The wind howled. The ocean darkened. The clouds burst open.

A pair of eagles spread their wings and rode updrafts into the sky.

Gliding through low clouds, the eagles soared. Elijah knew they were flying to heights beyond his sight, above the rain and wind.

A sense of wonder and beauty filled Elijah. He felt as if he soared along with the eagles.

Sitting in the ground floor of the lighthouse, Elijah leaned toward the open flames of the wood-fired Franklin warming stove.

He took out the photo that he kept in his chest pocket, next to his heart.

In the wavering light of the flame Maryanne's photo image seemed to come alive.

When Elijah picked at the frayed corner of Maryanne’s photo, he gasped. Another photo peeled off the back of it.

What was this?

Elijah’s throat and chest tightened, he stopped breathing, and he felt his face tighten. 

Was this photo also Maryanne?

Above him, in the lighthouse beacon's lantern room, the glass facets of the giant fresnel lens rotated.

The sparkling light from the burning kerosene wicks beamed across the sea.

Hundreds of feet below the bluff, waves beat against the volcanic sea stacks in the ocean. Boom, crash. They sent spray high into the night air.

Elijah sat quietly for a minute. Corresponding with a lady on the other side of the country and having matrimonial intentions was challenging.

With so few available single women in the wilderness in 1898, he had no choice but to place ads in matrimonial magazines. He was lonely.

Like other single men in the wilderness and small villages, he had to seek a potential wife from a populated area, often on the East Coast where there were many women seeking husbands.

Many of the single men had gone west to the wilderness to seek gold, homesteads, and new lives.

After a long enough correspondence, if each person decided to become serious, the lady would need to travel across the country by train, horse-drawn wagon, and boat to reach Elijah's isolated lighthouse.

The face in the second photo looked a little like Maryanne. But instead of a polite, lovely seamstress in her fashionable, well-tailored frock, this was another woman.

She had similar features, but wore dirty, tattered clothing, digging in a garden, her face soiled, and her stringy hair tangled in knots.

He compared it to the other photo. They might be the same woman.

Where was this? What was she doing?

He reached for the folded letter in his pocket and read it again. Soon the folds would start to break apart if he kept unfolding it all the time.

The woman in the second photo looked tired and ragged, thinner and with more lines on her face.

What was going on?

Outside the window, Elijah saw the storm calming and the eagles returning.

He reached for one of the books in the wooden box of the traveling library.

There. He found it in the book of poetry.

"On rugged cliffs,

The lighthouse towers,

Beaming her light,

Through the stormy hours.

Howls of the wind,

Like a strange life form,

Waves booming and crashing,

Sounds of the storm.

Eagles ride updrafts,

On airy sky trails,

Over the clouds,

Beyond rain and gales."

Elijah wanted to follow the eagles, rising above clouds to a peaceful sky. He let his mind wander in a fuzzy daydream.

On the other side of the country, Maryanne sat in her family’s home outside of town, surrounded by orchards and crops. The shrubs had grown up around the house, the paint was peeling, and a broken window was covered with boards.

After her father's accident, his steady income had disappeared. Using a cane, he moved about but was unable to continue his line of work.

However, his will remained independent and energetic, like Maryanne's.

She looked at the rows of vegetables in the gardens, almost buried under weeds.

“I’ll have to start wearing gloves all the time to hide my hands,” she thought. Scratches and blisters covered her hands now that used to be smooth and soft.

“Are you going to accept the offer on the house?” Maryanne knew the younger couple was eager to turn it into a home for their growing family. 

“It is a good price. Plenty for me to find lodgings or travel. Something I’ve always wanted to do,” said her father.

“I appreciate all the work you’ve done, daughter, working in your shop and working my crops for me at the same time. Two jobs.”

Maryanne looked around at the walls holding the books she loved so much. 

“It may be time for me to move into town, daughter, away from the farm, and travel part of the time. I would so love to visit my friends up and down the coast.” Maryanne heard the enthusiasm in his voice.

“I know Papa. It’s hard for me to keep working here on the farm and at my dressmaking and tailoring business in town. Emily needs to be where she can make friends and it is so isolated out here, too.”

Maryanne felt a weight lifting. It was time for a change.

Her father smiled at her and they both nodded. The future beckoned.

A sense of peace and happiness came over Maryanne. She felt a decision had been reached and she was glad.

Back on the West Coast, Elijah looked again at the charming photo of the woman in her wide-brimmed hat, wearing the lace-trimmed dress. A little girl sat on her lap. There was strength and a sparkle in Maryanne's eyes, despite her serious expression. They expressed a steadiness of character.

Then he looked at the other photo of a woman struggling through hard times. Maybe they were both of the same woman.

Did Maryanne know the second photo had been enclosed with the first one when she replied to his letter?

Elijah thought if his own story. He pictured himself, taking the ship from Norway to England with his brother, then the long voyage to the American east coast. Working in the shipyard. Saying good by to his brother and wishing him well on his new marriage.

Then another voyage around the South American cape all the way to San Francisco. Working on the docks there, becoming a sailor, fighting the storms and treacherous jetty at the Columbia River on the way to Portland.

He knew he made a good looking figure now in his lighthouse keepers cap that reminded people of a captains cap. But he didn’t always look or dress like this. Growing crops below the lighthouse keeper’s house kept his hands rough but when it was time to made dinner he was glad to have the fresh produce.

Maybe Maryanne had a different but similar tale to his own. 

What was the real story of her life? 

The struggles and hard won successes?

Of course she must be a lot more than a pretty woman in a lovely dress in a picture.

Elijah decided he wanted to know more. What made her tick? 

He thought about the storm howling outside and the eagles flying upward through the clouds.

What storms had Maryanne flown through?

It would be several hours before he needed to climb the spiral stairs to the beacon room and replenish the kerosene to keep the light burning and shining.

The urge to write Maryanne a letter grew. Next to the lighthouse log book were pens, inkwells, and paper. He began to write.

Elijah did not know how to express what he wanted to say so he tried to imply it.

“Dear Maryanne,

The two bonded eagles I last wrote you about flew by today when a storm squall came in across the ocean. I feared for them in these winds that almost knock me over. 

But they spread their winds and soared higher, then higher still. I saw them disappear into the mists above, together. Somewhere above the storm I knew they were soaring on outstretched wings, using the rising air from the storm to lift them. 

When other birds seek shelter on the ground or in trees, the eagles soar above the clouds, above the rain and winds.

It was almost as if I was there too. Rising, lifted by a storm instead of buffeted by the winds and rain.

Have you ever felt this way, Maryanne?”

Elijah hoped he was approaching the questions he had in a subtle way that would not offend her or embarrass her. He did not think she had intended to include the photo of herself in a state of disarray along with the one where she was a model of fashion.

He continued writing. “I have weathered many storms myself, and my story is not always easy to tell. Some of it seems so far away now.

Maybe you have weathered some storms too. Perhaps someday we can tell each other about it.”

He sighed. His chest had loosened and he felt better. It was a relief to approach the matter instead of trying to bury it. 

“I love my pair of eagles who sometimes soar by the lighthouse lantern room at the top when I am servicing the beacon. Perhaps someday you will be able to see them too.”

There. He had spoken fairly openly for him about his intentions. He was clearly interested in her.

Now he needed to get the letter posted in the village an 8 hour ride away from the lighthouse and wait for it to arrive and then for a reply. 

Elijah put both the pictures in his chest pocket, close to his heart.  

Images of eagles gliding above the ocean floated like sea mists through his mind.

That night he fell asleep with a smile on his lips.

He imagined a sign over the door to his lightkeeper’s house on the bluff above the sea that said, “Eagles Flying Above the Storm.”