Walk Across the Sea

Every so often I get obsessed by some­thing, and I don’t know exact­ly why. This hap­pened with light­hous­es, oh, some­time back in the 1980’s. Each time I drove out to the coast of Ore­gon or Wash­ing­ton, I would check to see if there was a light­house near­by. If so, I would vis­it. I knew I want­ed to write some­thing set in a light­house, but for years, noth­ing clicked.

Then one day my par­ents, who lived in Brook­ings, Ore­gon, asked me if I’d like to vis­it the light­house in Cres­cent City, Cal­i­for­nia, just a lit­tle way down the coast. The moment I saw this light­house, I knew it was the one.

For one thing, it looked just like a house. There was a spi­ral stair­case inside, and if you kept going on up past the sec­ond floor, you found your­self in the light­house tow­er. Also, kids actu­al­ly used to live in this light­house; they helped their par­ents tend the light. And final­ly, the light­house was on a tidal island. Dur­ing high tide, the sea com­plete­ly sur­round­ed the hum­mock of land on which the light­house stood. But dur­ing low tide you could walk across the seabed to the main­land. Some­thing about this drew me, this tidal island. Some­thing that even­tu­al­ly con­nect­ed with one of the book’s themes. But at the time, it was only a feel­ing, and I could­n’t have put it into words.

Still, I did­n’t yet have enough to write my sto­ry. While pok­ing around the Cres­cent City His­tor­i­cal Soci­ety, I hap­pened upon a 3x5 card on a wall, inscribed with a fad­ed type­writer rib­bon. The card told of the expul­sion of the Chi­nese com­mu­ni­ty from Cres­cent City in 1886. Peo­ple were tak­en from their homes. Put in horse-drawn carts. Loaded onto ships and car­ried down to San Francisco.

I have to say, I was shocked. I had nev­er heard of this. And it seemed to me this shame­ful chap­ter in Amer­i­can his­to­ry ought to be known. And so Cres­cent City’s Chi­nese expul­sion became anoth­er part of the sto­ry I want­ed to tell.