In the Nautilus

Years ago, I caught a routine with comic Stephen Wright who said “I’m not afraid of heights…I’m afraid of depths.” At a young age, I wasn’t bothered by dangling from a ski lift, or leaning over a cliff to take a photo. As I got older, Ferris wheels and other skyborne leg-dangling devices became terrifying.

So you’d think, looking down the spiral stairs inside the Ponce Inlet lighthouse, I’d be bothered. Nope. Not even at the top, staring out across the sea to to Smyrna Dunes Park, walking the slender walkway around the top of the lighthouse. Instead, on the way down, I was fascinated by how the pattern of the staircase mimics the inside of a nautilus, a cross-section of seashell, and stopped numerous times to take photos, to the consternation of folks worried about their own climbs up or down the inside of the lighthouse — worried about me getting dizzy leaning over the rail with my camera. Not so. Fascinated, instead.