Sandcastle Lessons

My family went to the beach for a week almost every year of my life. In fact my parents still do and any of us kids and our various appendages be it husbands, children, friends, or significant others are welcome to join them. These were sun-filled weeks of sleeping in, lounging around, eating what felt like decadent lunches of grapes and Muenster cheese. Mom even bought Pringles. The memories of all the summers run together like so many watercolors. Even after all these visits, the ocean still is a place of great comfort and fear, of mystery and familiarity.

I love the beach still.

I’ve learned some of life’s biggest lessons at the beach—sandcastles wash away, holes get filled in, everything changes all the time, the sun burns, the water will eventually make you cold, and no one will love you or hurt you more than family. I learned how to ride waves, find the surface after wiping out, to dive under rough waters.

One thing I learned was that no matter how big and how sturdy I made the sandcastle and no matter how deep the moat, it would all wash away with the tide.

To get around this, I tried to make sandcastles with security systems. Sometimes to make them last longer I would dig a deep moat. That way the waves that reached the castle edges would pour water into the moat, instead of washing away my hard work. But deep moats reach the water table. The water eats away at the surface, filling in the hole and destroys the castle faster than if I had just left it moatless and vulnerable to the waves.

Another option would have been to build a castle higher on the beach—out of the water’s reach. However, the sand there isn’t good castle-building sand. It’s dry, coarse and just won’t hold together. To build a good sandcastle you have to build it down where the sand is fine and moist. You have to build down where the waves will reach it when it’s time.

Ultimately, I learned that nothing worthwhile is either easy or permanent. Fighting these two facts is futile.

You have to take risks for beauty. You have to build near the water.