As lighthouse keepers, we've kept our love alive through endless storms [View all]
When people discover that my husband and I were lighthouse keepers together on the Pacific Coast for 13 years, their facial expressions betray horror at the idea of living in isolation on some remote island. Or their eyes droop to half-mast, followed by a dreamy smile, as they perhaps imagine a burly lightkeeper wielding a telescope, while a willowy young woman is propped on a rock gazing out to sea, yearning for someone — or something.
Enter reality: my husband, Jeff, wore foul-weather gear. So did I. Romantic pheromones consisted of a whiff of diesel or gasoline laced with salt spray and an undertow of healthy sweat.
Jeff is an early bird, whereas I'm a night owl, so he worked the morning shift, rising at 4 a.m., while I radioed my last weather report at 10:40 p.m. from Lennard Island, B.C. We worked seven days a week for months on end, often without anyone else's companionship for long stretches. How do love and romance survive this and the endless days of rain, fog and nearly constant winds?
When lighthouse couples work together, sometimes the relationship can devolve into a power struggle. Self-awareness slips away when eroding mental health is an issue. More than a few people have confided in me they could not live in such close quarters with their spouse, let alone work with them. Perhaps what they don't realize is that the beauty of shift work is that you do have time and space to yourself, and Jeff and I both liked those quiet hours.
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https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/first-person-lighthouse-keepers-romance-1.7114362
Happy Valentines Day Everyone!
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