The Lighthouse Keeper’s Wife
Pt. Reyes, California
2011
I found myself wandering back to the Pt. Reyes photos and found this additional lighthouse image I like. That’s a hooded young woman in the lower left corner. I didn’t really want her in the photo but since she made it in there anyway, I decided to work her into a fictitious role in the title. Back in the days when this lighthouse was a very remote location, it must have taken a special personality type for the operators to be able to enjoy, tolerate, or suffer through (as the case may be) long stretches of isolation. I enjoy isolation, but only in smallish bits, then I require more stimulation. So, positioned at a remote lighthouse, I’d likely find myself spending a lot of time doing just what I imagine this young woman to be doing; watching the ships pass by out off the coast, wondering where they were bound and wishing to be on board.
(In the interest of political correctness, I should point out that the title assumes the young woman is the lighthouse keeper’s wife rather than a female lighthouse keepers because, back in the day, the lighthouse keepers were almost always men.)