The Lighted House

Pristine.  That's how I would describe the day.  We had lived in the lighthouse for over fifty years.  Weathered many a storm together.  My wife would batten down the windows, put on an extra jumper, and put on some soup. 

Copyright © 2012 English Russia

But today, all is quiet.  The weather calm and the sky nearly clear.  This was the kind of day she would put on a jumper and go sit on the rocks and read.  But, alas, now it’s just me and the cat.  Who would have thought that such a hard working woman could be taken so easily?

So, today I'm going out in my little boat to bask in the light of the sort of day she liked.  I'm taking flowers and they're occupying the honorary spot in the middle of the boat where she used to sit.  The boat is small and propelled by the oars in my hands.  It is slow work because I am so old and my joints creak almost as much as the house does.  

The salty sea air is doing wonders for my spirit.  Inside the house it can get dark and cold despite the temperature in the outside air.  Pictures are all I have left of the woman who could deter me from stealing a biscuit with nothing but a wooden soup spoon.  Pictures of our children, and their children.  Pictures of our parents.  Images and memories are all I have and both are fading.

But the sea is the same, in the way that it is always there and always changing.  She loved the sea and that is why she loved me.  I am a man of the sea and I will always be; it’s in my blood.  But lately, the sea has been calling.  So, I'm in my little boat to see what it wants.  After an hour of laboring with the oars, I'm only halfway around the cove.  The work feels good in my muscles, but my joints are not responding like they used to.  I'm alive, the sea is calm, and the birds are talking.  It's a beautiful day.

Last night, I remember as I paddle, I had a dream.  A neutral dream.  A dream with my wife and the sea and a shiny lantern glowing in the distance.  I still can't decide if I like the dream or not.  But the sea is light now, vibrant blue with hues of green.  It is day, not night like in the dream so it falls back into my memory.  I am calm like the ocean, breathing gently and feeling the breeze on my old, wrinkled face.

I remember to give wide berth to the rock jutting out of the water as I cut back in to a little bay.  It runs deep and below the surface the rock is wide and jagged.  How many little boats it took to discover all this rock's secrets is hard to say.  At least five.  Many fishing trips were taken to this bay.  She used to love coming along to fish.  She wasn't ever particularly good at fishing, but she was always good company.

In the days of our children, she never wandered far from the house.  She would play with the children and cook and read them stories in the sunshine.  Leaving them for a second could doom them to death by desire.  The water is so inviting and so dangerous for someone so little as our children were.  We had to teach them to swim and never swim alone.  "The water is beautiful, but the water is dangerous," we told them.  We were good parents.  

When our children moved away, the ocean helped us stay busy.  We tended the light in the tower, we fished, we went out boating.  We became dancing partners again and we played the old records without mercy.  We enjoyed our own company and never turned away any who visited us.  She put up the pictures she took and the pictures our children brought us.  

She kept the shutters open.  Light flooded into the kitchen which curved around toward the base of the house.  The kitchen was where she loved to be.  She baked and cooked until she was tired of it.  But, she was never really tired of it.  Just like I am never tired of the sea.  It beats in my heart, the wave's rhythm.  Never ceasing, except in the dream when the lantern came on.

But, the day I was paddling in was glorious.  An old man's day.  The ways of the world off in the distance connected to the mainland and the rush of activity that followed it there.  Today was my day.  My own rowing delegating my direction.  The gentle breeze in my thin hair.  My sweater was enough to keep me warm in the sunlight and I'm old enough that I won't get too hot in the same light.  Everything was just perfect for the day.

I was paddling around the calm side when I had an urge to nap.  I pulled the boat onto a rocky little shore and lay back basking in the light that warmed my closed eyelids.  I don't know how long I slept but I was on no schedule and I had nowhere to be.  

I woke to the sounds of the early evening.  I shivered a little and backed the boat off the beach.  I was still tired, but I needed to be getting home to the light.  It was getting dark and I was very hungry.  The cat was probably angry with me for not letting it out in so long.  The water was very still, occasionally wobbling in the breeze that grazed its surface.  My little boat cut into the calm and left ripples out behind.  

I could hear my wife commenting on this kind of day.  "It's a weird one, George.  The water is never as calm as now except before a storm."  Perhaps she was right.  I thought I could sense a change in the air and something was on its way.  I thought perhaps I should be getting back.  But, my muscles weren't really responding now.  The cold and the fatigue of rowing all day were wearing me down and I couldn't help but want to fall back to sleep again.  Foggy words in my brain told me to keep rowing back to the lighthouse, but my body didn't want to do anything.  

I turned the final bend and the house came into view.  A spectacular sunset was sinking back behind the house and the light was falling through the tower.  It was quite possibly the most beautiful sunset I'd seen in my entire life.  I felt a peace and calm fall into me and I couldn't help but shed a small tear.  

"It is beautiful," I whispered.

"George, it is beautiful."

My wife was sitting right in front of me in the boat holding the flowers I'd brought for her.  She was glowing in the setting sun and looked as pretty as I ever saw her.  


 The Lighted House © 2012 Katherine Kovanda

Through the Window

Sunlight brightens a room.  Of this I'm sure.  It is uplifting and warm and reassuring.  Add to that a steaming cup of coffee and a good book and the recipe for a perfect getaway spot is complete.  I sometimes bring my plant to the window for a shower of light.  It just adds something to the space every once in a while to have a living organism sharing the light with you.  My cat even comes to join me on occasion.

One day I was reading a dark story.  It was a bit depressing, and impeccably well written.  I had to take breaks every couple of hours to let my mind unwind from the stress of the story.  During these times I had been refreshing my coffee and gazing out the window.

The window's view was from the second story of my house.  It overlooked a side street that had a little cafe right across from the house and other little shops up and down the street intermingling with a few other houses. As I was sitting staring mindlessly out the window, some movement at the cafe below caught my attention.

A young man and woman had just sat down at one of the little outside tables.  It wasn't long before the waiter brought them both cups of coffee.  It wasn't a cold day out, but in the shade of the building it was cooler and there was a slight breeze ruffling the tablecloths.  The two young people seemed to be enjoying their conversation.  

From my sunny perch it seemed as though I was watching a silent movie taking place below me.  They reached across the table at one point and began holding hands and the gesture delighted me.  It was such a subtle and natural action.  I could see that both were deeply engaged in the other.  They hardly looked away from one another.

I left to go refill my coffee one more time and when I came back, the couple was halfway through their afternoon meal.  It reminded me of when I used to go out to cute little cafes with my husband.  We didn't seem to do that anymore.  We had become busy individuals who granted quick pecks on the cheek when we passed in the halls to and from our activities.  This younger couple made me miss those days.

Just then, I actually saw my husband walking up the street.  He was fixing the sink downstairs today on his day off from his job.  I admired his ability to fix almost anything that could break.  It was one of the wonderful qualities he possesses.  I watched him near the dining couple and then cross the street.  I noticed his little brown hardware store bag; he must have gone out to get a part that he needed.  As he was crossing the street he looked up to my window and I smiled and waved down at him.

Not too long after, the couple paid for their meal and then left, heading up the street hand in hand.  I sighed and then returned to my book as the sun continued streaming in through the window.  My novel wasn't quite as interesting now, but it was just as depressing.  It wasn't a very happy story, but it was one of the newer books in our library.  I didn't feel like reading more of it so I closed my eyes and leaned my head back against the wall to enjoy the rest of the sun.

After a few minutes I heard the stairs creak as my husband made his way up to where I was sitting.  I could sense him standing in the doorway watching me as I soaked up the sun in my corner.  He smiled at me when I opened my eyes and looked over at him.

"Would you like to go out for dinner, Marissa?" he asked me.

I smiled and took his hand as he helped me up.

"I'd like that," I said kissing him.




Through the Window © 2012 Katherine Kovanda

A Tree's View

My life is slow.  I don't mean boring, just slow.  In a manner of speaking not a lot happens, but when it does, it is enjoyable.  I listen to the squirrels quipping back and forth.  I gaze at travelers passing by. Sometimes they come in groups and sometimes they come alone.  These people admire the river and the rocks and the views, hardly leaving a mark on the land.  They stay on the paths and don't venture out into the woods among us.

I get to watch as the river rushes by.  The birds chatter.  The weather changes.  And every once in a great while someone comes along who stops to appreciate me.  When I was a sapling, growing cautiously atop my rocky mound, there were those who drew me.  They would sit and marvel at the sapling growing from a rock.  I used to love seeing their eyes light up beneath untidy, windblown hair as they put charcoal to paper. 

There was a long time when no one came.  We all talked amongst ourselves, but it just wasn't the same as having visitors.  The humans had forgotten us.  They were busy inventing contraptions to do all sorts of things we couldn't even dream of.

But then they came back.  Humans carrying new boxes.  Flash and smoke.  Something that this one young man carried with him was bulky and looked fragile.  He took his time setting it up.  There was a root contraption that he set his box on before lining it up, taking care to center me in his line of sight.  He pushed a button and then waited.  He was a very patient young man, I was very impressed.  He didn't move for quite some time.  Then he smiled and packed up all his things and carried on.  I never saw him again. 

As soon as the humans had come they left again.  The time passed and we continued growing.  There were rumors that many of our distant cousins were becoming victims of torture and pain and death.  We drooped in sadness.  The rains made us feel fresh again, but as soon as the clouds passed we felt dry to the core.  Happiness was a passing fancy.  In places where rain was frequent multitudes of our cousins fell.  And what did the humans care?  I suppose we are dispensable.  What tree has feelings?  All of us! That is who.  In our quiet edge of the world, we raged.  I was a very angry adolescent.  

Time passed again and soon news of humans caring soothed our wind burnt leaves.  I was older and a little wiser and I had put the past to rest.  I was beginning to learn to hope.  Hope for the humans to realize their wrongs.  Hope that more visitors would wind their ways through our paths.  Hope that I would live to see the ancient age of some of the many great trees around me.  

All of a sudden the gadgets some of the humans began wandering through with were enough to make me shake a leaf in their direction.  They walked through chattering on about whatever life had thrown their way.  The walk was no longer a peaceful thing.  It had become interrupted by gossip and shrill laughter if anyone walked by at all.  It had been so long since someone had stopped to look at me.  They noticed the river or any animal that a person could encounter in the woods.

A great loneliness spread like a plague and we all became quiet.  After so many years, we were running out of things to talk about.  Tragedy would give us something to talk about on occasion.  Wild fires ripping through the woods of distant places, floods, droughts.  All the things no one really wants to talk about.  So we just stopped talking.  Old age was making us more susceptible to the quiet the woods afforded.

I clung to my rock.  Deep down below it, my roots were contented in the soil.  It made me feel majestic on my little hill.  Ever so slightly taller than my fellows.  I felt special.  I grew my moss proudly, surrounded by great fellows with aged friendships that even stood the weather of time.  Years could pass and snow could fall but I continued to stand tall and I reached toward heaven.

I don't know when humanity began to look at us again.  But then suddenly there were tours through our midst.  Young people walking through and quietly talking amongst themselves, snapping photos, as they said, and rather enjoying themselves.  From my rock, I could watch them pass, gazing out at the river, some occasionally bothering to turn towards me for a second.

Then she came along.  She came in a group of people and lingered a little after they had moved on.  This girl noticed me.  I watched her eyes trace my branches as they bent toward the sky.  It had been cold and the drafty wind made her pull her coat tighter.  She had been showing her pictures to some of her friends in the group on her camera.  Backing up a few steps the young girl took a picture of the sun shining through my branches as I clung to my foundation.  She came and sat on my rock and looked out over the river from my point of view.  The picture I watched her take captured the bend in the river and the path below my very feet.  The moss was a vibrant green against the greying of my friends' branches.  The rocks were dark with damp and where our leaves had fallen the past autumn were patches of dark orange.  

I felt sad when she left to catch up with her friends, but she cast one last look back before she turned around the bend and out of sight.  I sighed into the wind with contentment.  But, for a while we trees had something more to talk about.  I especially recall that photograph.  It is engrained in me.  It reminded me of the beauty I've grown up in, refreshed the feeling of seeing something new.  And, it was as simple as a seeing a young girl's perspective of my point of view.



A Tree's View © 2012 Katherine Kovanda