Lighthousekeeping

by Jeanette Winterson

‘You’re not like other children,’ said my mother. ‘And if you can’t survive in this world, you had better make a world of your own.’

I was cold and tired and my neck ached. I wanted to sleep and sleep and never wake up. I had lost the few things I knew, and what was here belonged to somebody else. Perhaps that would have been all right if what was inside me was my own, but there was no place to anchor.

There were two Atlantics; one outside the lighthouse, and one inside me. The one inside me had no string of guiding lights.

every light had a story—no, every light was a story, and the flashes themselves were the stories going out over the waves, as markers and guides and comfort and warning.’

What kind of story, child? A story with a happy ending. There’s no such thing in all the world. As a happy ending? As an ending.

When the men with computers came to automate it, it would flash every four seconds as it always did, but there would be no one to tend it, and no stories to tell. When the ships came past, no one would be saying, ‘Old Pew’s in there, lying his head off with his stories.’ Take the life away and only the shell is left.

It’s better if I think of my life like that—part miracle, part madness. It’s better if I accept that I can’t control any of the things that matter. My life is a trail of shipwrecks and set-sails. There are no arrivals, no destinations; there are only sandbanks and shipwreck; then another boat, another tide.

We’re here, there, not here, not there, swirling like specks of dust, claiming for ourselves the rights of the universe. Being important, being nothing, being caught in lives of our own making that we never wanted. Breaking out, trying again, wondering why the past comes with us, wondering how to talk about the past at all.

The continuous narrative of existence is a lie. There is no continuous narrative, there are lit-up moments, and the rest is dark.

Some people say that the best stories have no words. They weren’t brought up to Lighthousekeeping. It is true that words drop away, and that the important things are often left unsaid. The important things are learned in faces, in gestures, not in our locked tongues.

What should I do about the wild and the tame? The wild heart that wants to be free, and the tame heart that wants to come home. I want to be held. I don’t want you to come too close. I want you to scoop me up and bring me home at nights. I don’t want to tell you where I am. I want to keep a place among the rocks where no one can find me. I want to be with you.

‘Never rely on what you can see. Not everything can be seen.’

I’ll call you, and we’ll light a fire, and drink some wine, and recognise each other in the place that is ours. Don’t wait. Don’t tell the story later. Life is so short. This stretch of sea and sand, this walk on the shore, before the tide covers everything we have done. I love you. The three most difficult words in the world. But what else can I say?