Following the coast south from Larrabee led us here, to a shellfish farm known for a peculiar little lighthouse nearby. The shore is broad and grey, and half-hidden under seawater from the recent turn of the tides. When the water comes back in, I imagine it could rush all the way up to the edge of the seating area, lapping against the stones and cement and spraying seawater and foam onto the visitors and workers if the wind picks up enough. The sands are practically littered with the discarded, sun-bleached white shells of oysters and mussels, resting in the hollows of the stones.

We walk out onto the spit jutting from the sand, balancing against the unbroken wind as we step from rock to yellowed rock. For the most part, they're stable under our feet despite their grating shifts, but there are a couple instances of smaller chunks dislodging and tumbling down into the sand as we recover our footing up above. The rumblings of machinery and water being pumped through the farms behind us remains omnipresent no matter how far we walk, but it grows at least quiet enough that we can hear one another with ease when we come upon our particular destination.

The lighthouse of the Taylor Shellfish Farms is only about fifteen feet tall, and in a less than ideal location to guide ships. It's a piece of decoration, a piece of artwork made ever more remarkable by the material that covers its walls: the shells of oysters. Innumerable shells, rough and solid under my fingers as I trace their outlines. Most of them are the white of those on the ground all around us, but a few are yellowed, or grey like the rocks around our feet. There are even a few that have turned near-pink by some unknown mechanism. Each shell is perfectly intact, without any signs of cracking or being forced out of their original shape. The patience and time it must have taken to layer each of these shells, which are perhaps half my hand wide, all the way up to the top of this structure is almost unimaginable to me.

With a bit of artistic license, perhaps this lighthouse is a monument to the collective human spirit. Persistent, stubborn, fighting and flexible in turn, inventing and creating and finding the beautiful things. Maybe that's what all this stands for.

As we turn and start heading back, we're faced with a reminder of the less beautiful aspects of humanity, almost forgotten in our examination of the light.