Spiralling Lights

Mikayla Leskey | Arts and Entertainment Editor

Beautiful red lighthouse at sunset with purple cloudscape. Marine evening background wallpaper. / Photo by 'Kawaii-S', licensed by Envato.com.

I’m standing in a field of rotting flowers. Waves crashing beneath me, wind sweeping my hair, salt on its entrails. There’s a lighthouse in the distance, barely peeking through the fog, a guiding light to sailors and ships alike; begging for their safe return.

It throws me back to snowtober; when a blizzard hit my state for three days straight. My brothers and parents and I bunkered down in the playroom, old bedsheets pinned to the archways and windows, an attempt to keep the heat in whilst the snow amounted outside.

Pictures of lighthouses line the walls, statues of them sitting on the mantle. All replicas of one another, red and white spiralling down from a black top. It’s been an ever-growing collection of my parents for as long I can remember.

It spoke of their past, from working at the same beach as teens yet never meeting until adults working at Toys R Us. It held memories of unspoken truths and promises of warmth and home ahead. I think I realized home wasn’t a place when I could taste the tap water at my parents.

I didn’t even know water had a taste until I moved to college for the very first time. I couldn’t describe the taste even if I tried only that it never tasted right. I’m standing in a field of rotting flowers. Waves crashing beneath me, salty wind burning my eyes, and all I can wonder is if this is what my parents thought home was.

The smell of decaying perfume, sand in places where sand shouldn’t be, and sunburns so bad that the tan lines last for years. This place has never been my home, I don’t know if it ever will be.

At least, not when I freak out when I can’t place my feet on solid ground—that’s why I always hated swimming. Unable to feel where I am, weightless in a body that’s able to consume without a second thought.

Is this what home is?

Afraid of every small movement, unable to rest without anxiety tearing at my mind, chest constricting, I can’t breathe.

I’m standing in a field of rotting flowers.

The sun is setting behind the light house, the pink and orange glow reflecting off the water, salty wind brushing my face. One breath in and I smell the sunblock my mom tries to force my dad to wear but he always refuses. One breath out and my brothers and I have matching sand rashes from boogie boarding for hours.

Whenever I have a sip of water with them or my parents or my friends I can’t taste it. But the second I’m alone I’ve never tasted anything more revolting, I’d gag and try to spit it out, even though the water was from the same container.

The beach, the water, has never been my home. But it is for my parents. I’ve never seen them more at peace than during summer beach days. Wading in the water or moving with the waves, you’d think the ocean was a part of their souls.

I wish I could experience the beach like they do. To be at peace with being bodiless, unknown to the world and to themselves. To enjoy bathing in the sun like it was where they were meant to be all along.

For the longest time, I thought my home resided on the softball field. Despite the tears and hoarse voices and bruises and scars it was the one place I could always recognize my 7-year-old self in. Where she was happy and bold I was scared and timid.

Even with dirt where dirt shouldn’t be, turf burns on my knees, and the yearly farmers tan. It was the one place I thought I could never get sick of. It wasn’t until my very last game did I realize softball hadn’t been my home for years. I couldn’t see 7-year-old me in it anymore, just a tired, burnt-out teenager.

I’m standing in a field of rotting flowers. Stars dot the sky above me, the blinding light of the lighthouse rotating throughout the sky, a guiding light to ships and sailors alike, begging for their safe return.

Lighthouses have their place throughout my parents home, a forever promise of warmth and unconditional love. I wish to be able to find a symbol of an undoubting home just like they did. Or maybe I’m doomed to be forever searching, never settling, always wandering to find something to call home.

Or, at the very least, to find a place where the water will forever be tasteless.