The Light We Carry—Or Don’t Carry

In darkness, there is light, but I wouldn’t deign to carry one. Not since I saw the light. It dawned on me: Why lug around a cumbersome AceBeam or a Maglite dumbbell, even one of those cute mini keychains, when I can affix a beaming bright bulb to my forehead? They may not be as trendy as what’s slung around city women these days, but in fleece-clad circles they are equally fashionable: headlamps are the fanny packs of the face.

The chef Wylie Dufresne once told me the source of his disdain for both to-go lattes and umbrellas: “I don’t like holding anything.” I agree. What’s a little drizzle versus the hassle of dealing with an extra appendage all day? I have a cousin who marches into my house for dinner armed with a water bottle the size of a Vitamix, and I always wonder: Does she think we don’t have glasses?

As a suburban Boston-raised mallrat who grew up reading under a pink comforter with the same flimsy red Eveready flashlight everyone did, I did not know of headlamps. It was my old boyfriend, a rugged Aussie named Rupert, who first introduced me to the practical joys of the hands-free light. Or “torch,” as he called it. It was the early aughts, which meant Rupert’s headlamp was giant and clunky, with a black rubber-encased lens as heavy as a Nikon and a colorful band as fat as a guitar strap. Hardly the sleek, piercing little LED numbers of today.

He’d take it everywhere he took me: into the backcountry, while hiking, camping, and fishing around Northern California. He’d wear it frying trout over his propane stove in the Sierra, pitching our tent under the stars along the Lost Coast, fleeing for the car one rainy night, when said tent leaked in Mendocino. On a dark November night in Yosemite, he and his brother, Finn, spent a good hour hoisting our food up a tree by the light of their headlamps—only to have two bears ransack our would-be Thanksgiving dinner anyway as we slept.

Strapped around his brown mop, above his kind eyes and smattering of freckles, Rupert always looked handsome, at home even in his hulking headlamp. As alive as he always made me feel.

If also kind of like a cross between a coal miner and a WASP wearing tefillin, as if he was some sort of rare outdoorsy Orthodox Jew. To Rupert, his headlamp was just another piece of gear, like his gaiters or trusty Opinel, which he’d use to pry us open an abalone, or spread oily sardines over a baguette as the perfect camping snack. To me, Rupert and his torch symbolized a sort of daring strength and self-sufficiency I lacked. A bold, beauty-filled life lit by AA batteries.

The electric Edison Cap Lamp (as in Thomas) was invented in the early 20^th century following a series of coal mining disasters. It initially consisted of a steel-encased rechargeable battery pack hitched to a belt and linked like an umbilical cord to a bulb. A bulb later mounted on a helmet, which allowed miners to move about underground, illuminated, and unencumbered, for up to 12 hours. These days, we’ve got 600 lumens and ever-lasting lithium batteries, featherlight weights, and varying light levels, from dim-red—ideal for dinner conversation without blinding your date—to Luxor sky beam-bright, a.k.a. “hippie mace.”

“Tell me the occupation of someone who might wear a headlamp,” my favorite game show once polled. Number one, indeed: Miners (65). Next, dentists and doctors (23). Detectives (4). Construction workers (3). Clearly, Family Feud fans aren’t an especially sporty lot. Add: rock climbers and spelunkers, ultrarunners, and SCUBA divers. Also, the nice wildlife-control guy who once recovered a not-small raccoon decomposing deep under my deck.

Out of the limelight, headlamps have long assisted in recovery efforts, from the rubble in Turkey to the 2018 cave rescue of the Thai soccer team to September 11th. The 9/11 Memorial & Museum collection honors two headlamps: a duct-taped Black Pelican, donated by Dr. Cynthia Otto, a veterinarian who worked the night shift at Ground Zero treating wounded search-and-rescue dogs; and a four-bulb Black Diamond with “Lt. Gleason FDNY 61” etched on the inside of its elastic band—the name of the EMT from Queens who wore it for a week straight while searching for survivors.

Flashlight People, like Facebook users, are apparently an aging bunch. “I’ve noticed older people buying flashlights,” the lady at my neighborhood hardware store told me. I called REI, and the senior merchandising manager, Melissa Paul, agreed; the senior set prefers flashlights. Headlamps are a consistently larger business, she added. (REI: Headlamp People.) Still, both product categories have seen steady growth in recent years. Makes sense, what with the pandemic and proliferation of bomb cyclones and Cat 6 hurricanes. Apocalyptic times call for more than candles.

Not long after we broke up, Rupert and his brother died in a car accident, on their way back from a fishing trip in British Columbia. In my favorite photo of the two of them, they are headlamp-ed, happy, holding massive rainbows.

It’s been almost two decades. I tossed his leaky tent ages ago, but his light shines on through my marriage, motherhood, and middle age. I rarely go backpacking anymore, let alone running through the redwoods at 2 A.M. Still, I have a small arsenal of headlamps scattered around the house for other reasons. Walking the dog at night. In case the Big One strikes.

I have a sturdy roof above me, and a warm bed flanked by nightstands topped with proper reading lamps—but I never use mine. The shade is too translucent. The bulb, too cafeteria-bright. I suppose I could change it. But I don’t. Instead, I prefer to cozy up with my book—kids curled in their beds; sweet husband quietly snoring beside me—and press on my Petzl.

There’s freedom in my narrow nighttime field of vision. In the surrounding darkness, there is no overflowing laundry basket. No clutter on the dresser. No carpool logistics. No real worries. (Those come only after the light goes out.) There are no wrinkles anywhere but the sheets. Just me and my torch, and its subtle, if glaring, reminder: that life is, at the end of the day, still an adventure.