Diego Garcia embodies the lone light that burns bright above a door, late at night, when that's all a body wants and needs to see. It's the thing that one searches for through a heavy snow, through a slow-going, over hours and hours of ass-numbing travel, after so much has happened, after nothing has happened. It's this pillar, this lighthouse that is gravitated to through all pain and suffering, because of all the love that's needed, that was had and the love that's hopefully still waiting there for you when you step upon that stoop and put the key you've been holding onto into the lock. The handle might be cold to the touch, but there's a swelling and smothering anticipation that whatever might be waiting on the other side of the door is warm and beaming.
*Essay originally published December, 2012