The van idled for a minute or so before warm air began to radiate from the registers. Kim sat beside me and Cody, her cousins son was in the back. He shed the blanket he had wore to keep him warm while they sat on the rocks and awaited my return, and buckled himself in. I put the van in gear and eased my way from the parking area.
It was quiet inside the van with only the faintest background music, I think it was a song for the Mira. We rolled forward a short way and I stopped the van and opened the door. "What are you doing?", echoed from the passengers seat.
"Just one more...", I replied without finishing the thought, I snatched the camera up from beside my seat and in what seemed a fluid motion, closed the door.
A few paces later I felt the dew weeping into denim of my pants. I was soaked from the knee down. I approached the lighthouse one last time and crawled up onto the remains of the original foundation. Three hundred years of rock and mortar steadied my stance. I zoomed in close, as if photographing a playing child in a candid portrait, seeking an untold story or deep secret, eased the control wheel to f/8, and softly applied the shutter.
Once back down in the van Kim and Cody were bantering back and forth and the music drowned out most of what I though I could hear. I was not listening anyways. I was taken aback by the density of the fog and sense of serenity one can only feel when the sea is near. I pulled off the side of the lane once again, this time rolled my window down, set my shutter and lens and froze a small shack and dock that stood lonely amongst the waters of the fisheries. With not a sole around I could imagine a black booted lobster fisher trundling down the walk. His open yellow jacket would flutter with only the breeze of his pace and his floppy yellow rain hat would stand out as a beacon to his fellows and mates.
In that thought, in that split second I held down that shutter, it occurred to me I had no idea why this place makes me feel like I do when I am here. It is not nostalgia, nor grandeur. Somewhere out in that fog lays the reasons why, when I am here I feel so different. The pains of so many past mistakes fade from mind. Hurt, pain, fear and indifference cease to exist here. Maybe it is simply the realization that we are small. We rise, live here a short time, then fade once again, like a ship leaving shore and fading on the horizon. Possibly it is in that one two-hundredth of a second I have realized that it is not what we have done or been recognized for that makes us who we are but what we have the potential to be. How do we rise above all we feel we have suffered? Heal and learn.
I rolled the window up, once again ratcheted the van into drive and the day was done.
