Meet me at the Lighthouse in Hermosa Beach,That shabby nightclub on its foggy pier.Let’s aim for the summer of ’71,When all our friends were young and immortal.

—“Meet Me at the Lighthouse,” Dana Gioia

It was Gary’s fault, really. That and my depression.

I had a rare day to myself in the house. It was the first time I was able to come up for air after a brutal month-long work schedule that threatens to double down in the coming weeks. It was quiet and calm, which is what I needed. And feared.

You have to be careful with your liminal moments, your in-between time. It’s when bad memories, cast-off decisions and other neglected boggarts from your life can literally come to haunt you.

Today proved ideal for boggart-haunting. I was making tea and enjoying a quiet morning, but depression was hitting me hard. The kind of depression that can be crippling if you let it. But it wasn’t an aimless sense of malaise; it was trying to tell me that something was off, something needed tending to.

Gary Gough is part of my regular YouTube rotation. I like Gary’s videos. They aren’t political or use some other desperate ploy to bribe my attention with dopamine. They’re about landscape photography. He goes somewhere, takes photos and talks to you while he does so. Innocuous, straightforward and calm.

Today, it seems he was visiting the Glencallum Bay lighthouse. Seems nice, I thought. A nice place to spend a day. It reminded me of a Dana Gioia poem, “Meet Me at the Lighthouse.” I kept thinking about it so much that I wrote it down while I drank my tea. Then I remembered my depression—it’s amazing what we get used to feeling when we aren’t paying attention—and I really wanted to rid myself of the feeling.

Well hell, I thought. Gary’s at a lighthouse. I live by a lot of lighthouses.

I could visit one...

Riddle-Weaver said:“Who is this man who stands in my hall? Who is this I’m speaking to? You won’t leave my hall unless you prove yourself to be even wiser than I am.”Odin said:“My name is Good Advisor, and I come to your hall thirsty from a long journey.”—Vafthruthnismal

King Hjalprek outfitted Sigurth with ships and men for his mission of avenging his father. They were caught in a bad storm and delayed at a certain headland. They saw that a man stood by the shore and hailed their boats. Regin announced himself, answered that he was with Sigurth, and demanded to know to whom they were speaking.“They call me Battle-Stirrer,” the man on the rock answered. “When young Volsungs set a table for the ravens. You can call me ‘Man on the Rock,’ or ‘Burden’ or ‘Spellcaster.’”—Reginsmal

Thor said, “I’ll tell you my name. I’m no criminal, and I’m from a good family: I am Odin’s son, Meili’s brother, and Magni’s father, warrior of the gods. You’re talking to Thor here! Now I’ll ask in turn, what’s your name?”The ferryman said, “Graybeard is my name. I rarely lie about that.”—Harbarthsljoth

I bid you gather around, friends, for it is the month of First Harvest, and in the spirit of its occasion I wish to share a tale as wondrous as it is genuine. I have upended my hat, as is my custom, and if generosity compels you, I would be grateful for any gratuity you may find appropriate. But for the sake of yourself and your company, I would ask you to wait until our tale concludes before offering your donation. Attend well, for no matter how fantastic or incredible you find the events to follow, I intend to prove them to be true—and they may forever alter your understanding of the lines between myth and reason. In return for your attention, I can promise that all will be brought to light in due time. Until then, please sit, and find comfort among the warmth of the fire and our modest gathering...

"There are a good many roads here," observed the shaggy man, turning slowly around, like a human windmill.

"Seems to me a person could go 'most anywhere, from this place."

Dorothy turned around too, and gazed in surprise. There were a good many roads; more than she had ever seen before. She tried to count them, knowing there ought to be five; but when she had counted seventeen she grew bewildered and stopped, for the roads were as many as the spokes of a wheel and ran in every direction from the place where they stood; so if she kept on counting she was likely to count some of the roads twice.

—The Road to Oz, L. Frank Baum

So maybe you pick up the book because on day four of your summer squat it’s a toss-up between a ten-minute walk to the library and a forty-one hour drive to California to keep from losing what remains of your sanity. You’re between apartments, between semesters, between jobs. Your new lease doesn’t start for another week so you’re staying at your buddy’s place until move-in day. His lease is paid up but he’s not there, he’s home for the break and put a hold on his utilities. You can’t use the range, the microwave or the air conditioner. You wake up at eight every morning because past that it’s way too hot to sleep. There’s no TV, powered or otherwise, and your smartphone is no help because you don’t have one yet—it’ll be years before phones will be described in terms of their intelligence. You think long and hard about the drive to California, then decide the library is the cheaper and lazier option. So that’s where you go that morning. That’s where you get the book...

The Ghost of Robin Hood is an original poem about the merry men—specifically Little John, Will Scarlock, Much the miller’s son, and the minstrel, Allan-a-Dale—and the state of England after their master’s death. Details regarding the death vary according to accounts, but there is a general agreement that he was betrayed by a prioress after he sought to be bled at Churchlees. This story, which takes place later, was inspired in part by “Merlin: a Poem” by Edwin Arlington Robinson.

Ingredients

Prepare your whole bean coffee, v60 cone brewer with unbleached paper filter, kettle with variable temperature, burr grinder with variable grind settings and filtered water. You can use any mug you like. Maybe use the mug you stole from work, the branded one that came from the café on the ground floor where everyone lined up for a hot cup in the mornings, catching up and sharing stories, holding their branded mugs. The mug that had a shorter line to fill each morning after each round of layoffs. The mug that didn’t join the buyout, didn’t start making the two-hour one-way commute into some new building that didn’t have a café or friends in the hallways. It came home with you because home is where you stayed...

There stands a beautiful hall near the fountain beneath the ash. Out of it come three maids, whose names are Urðr, Verðandi and Skuld. These maids shape the lives of men, and we call them norns. There are yet more norns, namely those who come to every man when he is born, to shape his life, and these are known to be of the race of gods; others, on the other hand, are of the race of elves, and yet others are of the race of dwarves. As is here said:

Far asunder, I think,The norns are born,They are not of the same race.Some are of the asas,Some are of the elves,Some are daughters of Dvalin.

Then said Ganglere: If the norns rule the fortunes of men, then they deal them out exceedingly unevenly. Some live a good life and are rich; some get neither wealth nor praise. Some have a long, others a short life.

Har answered: Good norns and of good descent shape good lives, and when some men are weighed down with misfortune, the evil norns are the cause of it.

—Gylfaginning, from the Prose Edda

Orphic poetry, daytrips to nostalgia’s outskirts and other curiosities, shared every Monday.

By July 2012, I was thirty years old and more familiar with classic rock than most of my own anatomy.

I had my family to thank for that: Due to my parents and two uncles, I had seen The Moody Blues, the Rolling Stones, and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young a few times over before I was old enough to drive. But that July, I'd have one of the most poignant concert experiences of my life.

I had been back in America for about seventy-two hours, and still unpacking from a master's program overseas. I had no future plans, no job, no furniture. On the drive back from the airport, my father had mentioned that he had a spare ticket for Roger Waters' performance of The Wall, and asked me if I would like to come along.

It was hardly a question. My father grew up on Pink Floyd; The Dark Side of the Moon and Wish You Were Here provided the soundtrack for his undergraduate years. I grew up on them, too—my memories from my early adolescence are indelibly linked to songs from The Division Bell. I would have felt lucky to hear the show from the parking lot, never mind tickets.

On one occasion the poet came to the house of Bres seeking hospitality … He entered a narrow, black, dark little house; and there was neither fire nor furniture nor bedding in it. Three small cakes were brought to him on a little dish—and they were dry. The next day he arose, and he was not thankful. As he went across the yard he said,“Without food quickly on a dish,Without cow’s milk on which a calf grows,Without a man’s habitation after darkness remains,Without paying a company of storytellers—let that be Bres’ condition.”“Bres’s prosperity no longer exists,” he said, and that was true. There was only blight on him from that hour; and that is the first satire that was made in Ireland.—Stanza 39, Cath Maige Tuired

“The Bay Will Wither If You Litter”—Inscription on top of a storm drain, Chesapeake Bay, Maryland