Creative Portal

During a heavy snowstorm late one January night in 2014, I began to think of what it would be like out at the Reef. Kate was almost blown off the promenade deck during one bad storm, and the one raging outside my house that night was another. Without much aforethought, and without stopping to edit, I began to write down the thoughts that were being dictated to me. It was one of the first, but not the last, times that Kate Walker's light shone on me.

The whiff of warmth and moisture, and the calendar, suggested snow was in the air, but I rowed the children to school anyway. As we drew near the shore, the temperature shifted with a small but hearty gust of wind. Mrs. H. welcomed them, and told me she'd keep them for the night if a storm came up. I pulled back from the shore, comforted by her largess.

Wind kicked up, ole Aquarian wind, that February morning, but I got back home on it, hauled the dory up, trudged in, and ruffled the stove.

I knew I'd soon have to handle the lights and foghorn. But I brewed a strong cup of coffee and warmed up the room, figuring if I slept at all, I'd sleep down here where it's warm.

The snow came around ten, sooner than I expected. I set the lights and readied the damn horn. I missed my kids in weather like this. They reminded me of its beauty, excitement, the awe that swept through with a thunderstorm or a dense fog. Ah well, I'd walk those steps many times tonight, first to haul my bedclothes down and set up my makeshift bed by the main fire. I'm too old to be hampered by the pain that would come—and has in my ignorant youth—from sitting in the cold. I put a pan of water on too. Helps the heat circulate.

Then up I trudged, set the lamps down in the bedrooms, prayed for my kids when I got up there. They'd finally settled in separate rooms, though Jacob had opened a 12" x 12" panel near the floor so he could keep in touch with Mary when privacy prevailed and he closed his door.

I shuttered their lamps and went back down for a hat, a warm sweater, and a bit of knitting. One advantage to the top deck is light. I can knit by it and read by it.

Stepping up my rounded staircase, which I always wished were carpeted in a riotous flower pattern—I slipped my foot onto each step, lifted my other foot up with my hip. It was the reverse exercise to rowing, where both of my feet are at work at the same time lifting my shoulders and oars. One foot at a time I loosened my hip bones step by step.

At top I settled in. Sweet light poured over me like a prayer, and on nights like this, when the world outside my windows was black, I felt engulfed by the joy of my home. It was a beacon. 

So I sat and knit, hoped for all. If tonight wasn't marred by a sinking, then good. If it was, then I'd signal with the horn. 

Were John here, he'd bustle, and he'd be right to make sure the chains were tight and there wasn't a foot of snow on the dory canvas.

Instead I'd stay in my warm cathedral of light, knit, pray, thankful for my kids' good shelter, and mine. 

—Erin Urban