Building
On a recent family trip to the coast, I started to think about sandcastles. Our family excursions to the beach always include building sandcastles, a practice that began when my children were very young and which involves three generations of family members.
Sometimes, the sandcastles we build are small and modest. Other times, they get more elaborate. Our creations also include more than sandcastles: animals, faces of famous people, and a Texas Longhorns logo, for example. Part of the fun is seeing who can come up with the most creative or outlandish idea, and then bring it to life in the sand.
Tides
Whatever we build is gone within a few hours. The tides roll in and wash it away, mixing it back into the ocean’s floor where it awaits another day’s creative efforts. But our knowledge that everything will be washed away never gives us pause, much less, prevents us from hauling our shovels and tools and buckets to the beach, spending significant time on our hands and knees crawling around each other, and building what we want.
The act of making something meaningful to us, and doing so with the people we love most, has inherent value. Sharing fun and joyful experiences, despite their fleeting nature, is something we willingly engage in, year after year. Walt Whitman wrote, “I tramp a perpetual journey.”[1] Building sandcastles reminds me of why and how the perpetual journey matters so much.
Rebuilding
Our lives are like sandcastles. We build them and then parts of us get washed away by the tides of life. Some tides are gentle and warm, others are jarring and cold. Either way, after they wash in and out we rebuild and continue tramping a perpetual journey. Then, eventually, the tides wash in and out again, and we repeat the process once more.
After my daughters constructed a monument to our home state in the sand, they took a walk on the beach together and I wrote this poem:
Sandcastles
The blue beach house sits in a row
With six others, all different colors,
Together forming a rainbow
On the shore, rain or shine.
A thin salty film covers ocean-facing windows.
Humid breezes blow across a wooden porch
Bringing familiar smells.
A couple of seagulls glide overhead and squawk.
We first came here when
Our daughters were four and two.
I remember us sitting at the water’s edge
Making sandcastles,
Walking the beach in search of seashells,
Flying kites, sharing picnic lunches,
Running toward the
Pushcart carrying lemon ices.
Now ages fifteen and thirteen,
They make plans with one another—
To drive golf carts, go for walks, and
Search for teenage boys.
Sitting at the water’s edge,
I linger in my memories and smile,
Making sandcastles
On my own.
__________
[1] Walt Whitman, “Song of Myself 46,” https://poets.org/poem/song-myself-46.
Allan Cole is Deputy to the President for Societal Challenges and Opportunities at The University of Texas at Austin, where he also serves as a professor in The Steve Hicks School of Social Work and, by courtesy, as a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Dell Medical School. Diagnosed with Parkinson’s in 2016, at the age of 48, he is the author or editor of many books on a range of topics related to bereavement, anxiety, and spirituality. His latest book is Counseling Persons with Parkinson’s Disease (Oxford University Press) and his next book, Discerning the Way: Lessons from Parkinson’s Disease (Cascade), will be published in late 2021. He is also working on a book of poetry titled In the Care of Plenty: Poems (Resource Publications), which will be published in 2022. Follow him on Twitter @PDWise.