When I was a kid, I never managed to find myself straying from the beach for too long. Summers in Rhode Island, winters in Florida, spring in Myrtle Beach. With my mother's love of the ocean came my own invitation to make amends with the sea.
Sometimes I'd swim until I felt like I'd pass out. Other times, I'd climb on some rocks searching for the sea creatures that'd scuttle about. It seemed that I could never tire of these simple pleasures, but when I did, there were always castles to be built.
Even when I was a kid, I had some weird aesthetic beliefs. I always wondered why people would come with cut out plastic buckets or fancy sculpting kits when all I really wanted to do was build
sand castles. While the artistically inclined built their Magic Kingdom out of dirt, and while the less talented committed oceanographic terrorism with a well placed foot, I built earthy monoliths that resembled some kind of surreal, gritty otherworld.
Sand castles all eventually face the same fateful return to the elements, so it wasn't a matter of whether you could save them, but rather how you chose their death. Build too far away from the water, and your castle will crumble in the wind, or get trampled by the bikini Al Queda. Build too close to the sea and you may not even finish your grand masterpiece before the ocean decides to say hello in a not-so-subtle way.
To me, there was something beautiful about the collision between sea and earth. I built my castles well within reach of the waves, usually at low tide, just waiting for impending doom to roll in. Sometimes, I'd try to wall off my real estate in hopes of beating the moon at its own game, but that never quite panned out. Instead, what I came to realize is that when water is at the door, it's best to just roll out the red carpet.
Between the mounds of sand and clay, I'd snake a labyrinth of canals, with high walls, low walls, tunnels, twists and turns. I'd dig deep and make room for flood water in various spillover chasms. Extending out to the waves, a walled ramp extended warmly from my sand empire to the chaotic and mischievous sea.
The first wave to reach my endless aqueducts was always the most exciting one. The flow was slow at first, but soon gave way to raging rivers of mud and salt. Before long, I had set before me a Venetian wonderland. It all seemed so elegant at first, so peaceful even with the road to perdition clearly paved through my city's landscape. This of course, was not meant for eternity.
Little by little the circulatory system of my mud palace would collapse, as tunnels folded and walls crumbled. You could almost hear the groans of the sandy towers as they twisted and tumbled into the murky deep. Venice had become Atlantis in a heartbeat. All that remained were echos of imagination, and a solemn reminder that the nature of life is change.
