Sandcastles II

I am the old man on the porch, encompassed by an unfathomable blue sky. Capped in a glory of white, the eastern mountains dapple their green toes in the far reaches of tranquil ocean waves. In the afternoon sunlight the dark brown dunes stretch on by the dozen, beaching speedboats, traversed by humans and crabs.

I sip water from a blue cup, doing my best to appreciate a gift too often taken for granted these days. The conversation has lulled, we older folks sinking into a familiar trance. The dream-world before us--hidden in plain sight among the bedlam of today's world--swiftly and stealthily crawls upon our porch unannounced but not unwelcome. Creeping among us, it steals our words and grants soft silence.

The youngest contingent of our family resides out on the beach, enjoying the ritual of a young tradition. In the early hours, when the moon coaxed the waters toward different shores, a remnant was revealed: a formless, water-scrubbed hump, understood only by the memory of yesterday's triumph. Upon this foundation, they are shovelling, carving, hands in a relentless pat against the sand: giving birth to a dragon. A fresh manifestation resurrected from ancient imaginations, the dragon is a being of toil, camaraderie, and craftsmanship. This titan of sandcastles is a physical testament to the spirit of labour and enjoyment; this crude etching in the sand a reflection of our proud, tumbling lives.

My days of working on the beach are over and gone. Four years ago I surpassed my last worldly hurdle by paying off my debt and this cabin, and I retired. In the same stroke I stopped building sandcastles with my grown kids and growing grandkids, a soothing task I loved. You may ask why? and I cannot answer. Perhaps because I was tired of fighting every day of my life. Perhaps because it brought balance, and I was returning to my centre. My final tide draws near.

The children are leaving the beach: filtering from the rising behemoth, splashing through the nearest tide-pool, toeing across the barnacle-encrusted rocks, sprinting through the hot soft sand, climbing up the grass, washing their feet in the kiddie pool, and ascending the stairs to meet the old man on the porch.

"Hey Grandpa!"

I smile, lift my granddaughter delicately and seat her wet frame upon my lap.

"Hello there, sweet," I answer, in a gravelly voice I would not have recognized ten years ago.

She turns to me and I am in lost in the moss green eyes she inherited from my wife. "Daddy says you used to help us." Her tone is curious and innocently accusatory.

I chuckle quietly. "Sure did, my little beach barnacle." (This is my favourite phrase for the little ones, originating when they would climb and hang on to me out on the beach. Get off this old rock, you pesky barnacles!) "But it's no longer my turn, you see. It's yours. You all have the wonderful opportunity to make..." I gesture broadly, "dragons and turtles and castles and--"

"Fat guys," she finishes briskly, referring to the summer's reigning sand-sculpting achievement.

"Of course, never forget the fat guys." I tickle her till she squirms off my lap. "Go have something to eat," I suggest, patting her head in true grandfatherly fashion.

As she skips off to the kitchen, my nephew takes her place--albeit in a chair and not my lap. A lime lies at the bottom of his corona like a sunken ship, spouting bubbles.

"Forgot how hard this sandcastle business was," he admits before taking a swig.

"Enjoy it while it lasts, kid," I reply with another chuckle, promptly followed by a hearty wheeze that adds fair weight to my point.

He came to this cabin as a boy, that first incredible summer of sunlit beach walking and late-night card games. The rest of the year I rented the place out to local workers--or tried to. Only when my youngest graduated and went to college did I move from the bustling, crowded city to stay permanently on the beach, working from home. That first full year was a spiritual rebirth: the vast sky, the trembling water, and the playful wind permeated me and permanently changed my life. This place is a steady and overwhelming force that patiently nibbled the bonds I had tied so intricately and then convinced myself were unbreakable. I was freed to drift upon an ocean of peace which my mind had forgotten but my soul remembered.

My nephew is talking again. "...and it's really been far too long, you know."

I nod in silent agreement before he continues:

"Last year we stayed home because of the kids' soccer, and the year before due to our Europe trip."

"Oh yes... how was that?" I ask absently, still half adrift.

"Lovely, lovely. Sasha adored Paris; Joel and Marissa wanted to stay in Greece forever."

"Of course," I reply. "I remember being there myself--a magical place.... Well, we're all glad you're here now."

"Same, same, and something special here too, eh?"

I nod. "There's something about building those sandcastles, I think. Seeing all your hard work go to waste makes you whole again."

He slowly agrees but I have a feeling he doesn't truly understand. I sigh; and then he says something I don't expect:

"But it's not really wasted. There's always the imprint you can see the next day, kind of a shadow, a reminder."

"Ah yes, well said. However weak your castle, there is always a bit left. Of course, eventually the tide will gracefully sweep it away altogether. But if we keep building the next castle upon the foundations of the last...."

I lapse into thought again. Seeing this, my nephew rises to join my sons in rounding up the children for the short trek back to their burgeoning fortress. The tide is approaching as it does every day. Out there on the dunes it is slithering, second by ponderous second, filling miniature gulches and breasting tiny cliffs. They resume shovelling and sculpting, the littlest ones running around and helping very little but giving great enthusiasm and performance nonetheless.

Four years ago, when I finally paid off all my debts, retired and quit building sandcastles, was the year I learned I have terminal cancer. The smart young doctor told me I didn't have long, and in order to try to save my life, I should begin treatment. Chemotherapy, the emaciating saviour. I told him I'd sleep on it.

I was angry--more angry than I have ever been. At sixty-three, I figured I still had more than a few good years ahead of me. I was healthy, still strong and mobile; I had retired mere weeks ago! I struggled and scraped and clawed every day of my life to be told that I was about to die. But I still had a choice.

There was a storm that night. Seated under the awning and wearing my warmest sweater, I wanted to see it. In all its beauty and power, I wanted to experience it: to live that storm.

Gathered during the rainy season in April, the storm was raging with a fury unbeknownst to me. The salty air thrashed and whipped about, the wrathful waves churned and rocked mightily, hammering the stubborn coastline. This was a storm which slaughtered sea life en masse, tore away kelp and snatched back driftwood long left to idle. As I watched my ocean being torn asunder by great gusts of wind, my sky shorn by steaks of lightning, I realized that I am tired of fighting.

It may sound as though I gave up, and that is true. I gave up my desperate possessiveness towards the life I live. I now shuffle from the arena with my head held high, knowing the end awaits me at the gates.

The tide returns from its mile-long journey like a true friend, an old lover. The children stand within the dragon's hollow belly, laughing, screaming, shouting, hurriedly patching crumbling defences, playfully battling the inevitable. The moat fills and overflows, the bold rock eyes sink, the snarling teeth sunder, the driftwood snout floats inland, the tail is eaten, the mighty limbs flatten, the grand embankments dip... and are broken, allowing the water to find solace in completion of a noble task.

Just so, my own sandcastle is at last crumbling. Having steadfastly built it up since birth, shovelful after shovelful; having crafted for it a beautiful facade; having smoothed its balustrades and its towers, replacing them when they dried and fell in the heat of the sun; having sat comfortably inside for the last four years, not as a squealing youngster but a weary, satisfied old man... I am ready.

Watching the children wade to shore, I know that the final tide has just about come in. Leaving nearly seventy years ago, it is only now returning to caress and sweep away my most cherished masterpiece. My life was a fresh script of an old story, gifted meaning and beauty by its impermanence, and I will go onwards knowing that I leave an imprint upon the sand, one upon which my descendants may build their foundations and enjoy a timeless game. My dragon rests sunken, summoning her last sigh as I prepare to wade back to shore, trek across the hot sand and up the porch steps to be welcomed by my own grandfather... hungry, happy, and home.