Voices
the apartment (or, in some of those
cases, dormitory building) before
anywhere from one to four different guys profess an interest in being her next boyfriend. There is a
constant stream there. She’ll make
her interests known, of course, but
she always has options. She could
sit down on the floor, be still, and
wait, and I honestly believe that
somebody would show up, sooner
or later, to ask her out.
This is what I like to call being “a
lighthouse.”
Lighthouse people are beacons
that call all the sailors in ships
back to land, beckoning them in
toward the light. Lighthouse people
are magnetic and luminescent, so
much so that even when one sailor
manages to row all the way to land
and climbs up into the lighthouse,
the rest of the sailors will stay out
there on the water, waiting for their
chance to come to shore. They will
feel that it’s always best to keep an
eye on the lighthouse, even if they
have to come and go due to other
sailorly obligations. The lighthouse
might act like it doesn’t know it’s
so popular with the sailors, but it
does. How could it not? Even if the
lighthouse has a special sailor for
the moment, its light is always on.
It can’t help it.
KATIE
HEANEY
HUFFINGTON
01.26.14
Now, I’ve had it pointed out
to me (by a bunch of boys who
couldn’t possibly understand the
metaphor) that this is not how
lighthouses actually “work.” These
jerks tried to tell me that lighthouses are actually there to keep
sailors away from particularly dangerous shorelines, because otherwise they’d crash into the jagged
rocks found there. I mean, fine. If
you want to get technical about
Rylee, since the time
I met her seven years ago,
has dated nine people. This
is probably not remarkably
high... What do I know?”
certain structures’ designated functions, then yes, that is correct, even
though I think that’s dumb because
people and creatures are drawn toward light and if lighthouses really
wanted to keep people away from
rocky shores they’d be big audio
speakers that played scary ghost
sounds. But I still think I’m right,
in the metaphorical sense. And the
lighthouses of my world are big,
sexy, maneaters. They don’t even
try to be that way. They just are.
I am not a lighthouse.