The Lighthouse Keeper's Playlist and the Letter That Came With It
A lighthouse keeper mails in a list of records and a letter, and Captain Noor reads both on air.
A package arrived at the station this week wrapped in brown paper and tied with the kind of knot that only comes from long practice. Inside were eleven song titles written in careful pencil, and a letter. The sender is the keeper of the north light, a man of few words who has apparently saved them all for this envelope. With his permission, I will read both.
The playlist first, because that is how he arranged it. He calls it his evening order. It begins with something sparse, a single guitar and a voice that sounds like it is standing in a doorway. Then comes a slow rhythm and blues number with a heartbeat of a drum, then an old standard he says he plays only when the sea is flat. He has labelled each one with the weather it suits.
Now the letter. He writes that the lamp turns every twelve seconds, and that over the years he has stopped counting and started listening, because the turning has a rhythm, and rhythm is how he remembers a woman he used to dance with at the harbor festival. He does not say what happened. He says only that he plays her song once a night, loud enough to reach the rocks.
The playlist first, because that is how he arranged it.
I will tell you what I think, since you did not ask. A person who keeps a light burning for strangers is not lonely so much as faithful to something nobody can see. His devotion has simply been pointed at the water instead of at a doorway. That is a tender way to be built, and the playlist is proof of it.
So tonight we play his eleven in order, and I will keep my commentary short, because he would not want a fuss. Somewhere out on the dark, a lamp keeps turning, and for the length of each song it will be turning for someone who is listening back.
If a letter like that makes you want to write one of your own, or to talk it through with a voice that has time for you, Amara is waiting on TheFriend. Send your own list. I read every one under the lamp, with the kettle close.
Write the letter you have been saving, and say it out loud to Amara on TheFriend, where nobody rushes the ending.
Continue on TheFriendMeet Amara: open Amara's profile on TheFriend.