Point Atkinson Lighthouse

The first lighthouse to be recorded in this book.

The live sketch I made of Point Atkinson Lighthouse, West Vancouver, BC, Canada. I categorically do not use rulers for my live sketches, so this one and all future ones you'll see are all free-hand. This is the frist Lighthouse sketch I've done, it took me about five hours and still ended up wonky. The rocks on the lower right hand side are completely nonsensicle, but I stand by this sketch. It's the first lighthouse I remember visiting, it's the first one in this journal and future ones will likely be better drawn as my skills improve, but I think it matters that this first one is kind of shit. It's my first, that makes it special on its own.

The little poem, blurb, whatever you want to call it beside the sketch is written by me. While the sketch was done on the 16th, the poem was written on the 30th after I'd had some time to sit with this lighthouse and research it a bit more. It's been a friendly light that set the tone of what home meant for anyone who lived along Howe sound; the foghorn could be heard all the way to Kitsilano. It's been a fixture of what home looks and sounds like for many. It's been a home to me the minute I stepped foot onto its wooded ground. Every year I come back to this lighthouse and spend a full day on the rocks by the sea within view of it. It's a good way to recenter and remember that at the end of the day life isn't solely work, or studying, or failed relationships. I can't stay in this isolated, quiet space forever. Eventually I need to leave and pick up all the responsabilities I'd put down at the park gate. However, I know that I can come back, that when things feel like they are too much I can come home and there will be a soft place to land.

This is the accompanying diary entry that I wrote on the 16th both before, during, and after I made the lighthouse sketch. For all of the diary entries I write them in pen originally, in my shitty, scribbly hand-writing that is frankly illegible even to me sometimes. Then, when I get home I spend the next few days going over the writing in ink and giving extra care to make sure the letters are evenly spaced and visible. I don't change the wording though, that remains true to what I wrote freeform in the moment.