Persistence
July 18, 2001
5:06 a.m.
As Brigid mentioned, we are away on vacation right now--which explains a lot as to why I'm not getting real progress on the book right now. Let's see--beach or novel? Hmmm..... I certainly hope the beach would win out in your world. It has in mine. Yesterday was the day for Brigid and me to build our sand castle. This was to be no small undertaking, either--most definitely not one of those pre-fabbed dohickies. No molds for us. Ours was not to be just a castle, you see, but a full-fledged mock-up of a medieval city complete with castle, wizards towers, noblemen residence, soldier's barracks, stable, an open air market and amphitheater, and, of course, the ever-required church. And let's not forget the farm. Or the city wall, and battlements. With real estate, though, location is everything. So first let me give you a picture of the beach. A wooden pier leads you from the hotel--a condo to be more specific, but it's being run like a hotel so you'll just have to deal with it on my terms--to an open plain of white sand. The first patch is like a mini-Sahara desert, loose and rippled by the wind and a myriad of footprints. It's this way until you hit the high-tide mark, whereupon you hit a ledge that drops about three feet to the waterline. From there to the water is smooth and water-worn. We started just after lunch. Brigid wore a big blue and green surfer-dude shirt of mine as a cover up, and her San Diego Zoo cap. A pair of Hollywood sunglasses dangled from the bridge of her nose. I had on my green trunks and a white T-shirt Brigid had gotten from the cruise line her grandparents had taken her to Alaska on. My own sunglasses were the wrap-around type that cover the side view as well as the front. We set out to build our city on the ledge of the high-tide mark, giving it, as Lisa commented, that "White Cliffs of Dover" feel. It was past low tide when we started, but we had plenty of time before high tide would send its waves licking at our cliffs. We started by wetting the sand and by building the foundation for the central castle. Much discussion occurred as to what events would be hosted in this building. Wedding receptions of course, and festivals, and grand visits from kings and queens. Once that foundation was in place, we huddled and drew up some blueprints. Well...they were really just scratches in the sand, but they got us centered on how the thing might look. Shared vision in hand, we set about to build the main tower. This was the dominant building, maybe two-and-a-half feet to a side. We built it in layers of damp sand from the work site, and very wet sand dredged from the ocean line itself. Brigid and I alternated being the bucket person, hauling sand. This resulted in a tower of compressed sand that we began building spires atop. "These are the wizard's towers," Brigid explained. "There are four of them." And so there were. Next came windows and doors. We were later to dig away a large part of the lower foundation, leaving a thick set of inner walls and a small courtyard for noble children to play in as well as providing this central tower with a greater feeling of height. Then came the rest of the city. It was laid out in your basic square, covering easily six feet in all directions. Four soldier's barracks to the northwest and southwest. Stables for their horses. Brigid spent a half hour crafting the open market and its glorious amphitheater. The sun crossed the sky. It was hard, and gritty work, but a great deal of fun. Sand got ... well ... everywhere. After a bit, both Brigid and I noticed that the tide was also moving in. We would have to hurry. So we hurried. Up went the church, and noble houses, and regular houses and the farm. By that time, the water was lapping at out heels. "Let's put in roads," Brigid said. I looked at the water crashing closer and closer to our white cliffs. "We may not have much time left, Brigid, I think we should do the city walls and call it a day." Brigid looked at the water, frowned, and reluctantly agreed. So we built walls. Big ones. And a front gate, and battlements for guards to look out from. And we were done. A wave crashed against our cliffs, casting a sparkling scatter of salty dew up against the coastline. It was a very cool moment. Brigid brought Lisa over to see it, and explained the city's design while I cleaned our tools. Another wave crashed against our walls and took some of the sand away. "Hey, it held!" I said with probably more incredulity in my voice than the chief engineer of a project ought to have. "Ahhh!!!" Brigid added. She was not pleased with the idea that her afternoon's work would be destroyed in a few dazzling minutes. So she set up sentry duty, pacing along the coastline to defend the fair city. You can see where this is going, right? I went out and played in the ocean to wash the sand off me. The waves, being what waves are, continued to crash. Water rose up, again and again. Still Brigid walked sentry. Finally, the big one hit. The entire northeastern section of the cliff eroded out. Our city was flooded, and a major portion of the farm area was essentially gone. I tried to joke about it to make Brigid feel better. "Well," I said. "Looks like the Vikings came." Brigid fumed and her lower lip quivered. "We knew it was sand, eh?" I tried next. But she wasn't having any of that. I gave her a hug. "It's okay, Brigid. We did a great castle, though, didn't we?" I was worried. We had had such a great time all afternoon, and now Brigid had a this blackness hovering over her. Her city was gone, the people she had been envisioning for a day were washed away. Lisa and I talked a bit. Grumbled, actually. Brigid pushed some sand around. A few minutes later, I saw she was digging a ditch behind the city wall. The engineer in me immediately realized this was a break--a second protective barrier to catch water that would run into the city. She's rebuilding, I thought. O geeze. I'm tired and I'm hungry, and she's rebuilding. I watched a bit more. I commented again how we knew it was not permanent. "She wanted it to last longer than the afternoon, though," Lisa said to me. Yeah, I know, I thought. And I wanted to eat tonight, too. "Do you want to help?" Brigid asked. "I am helping," I said. This was technically true. I had scraped my foot along the outer wall to clear detritus sand away. But both of us scoffed at that. Brigid kept building her break all the way around the base wall. She went to the cliffs and surveyed the damage, then began packing sand to put the cliff back. So I finally broke. I shoveled sand into the hole, and she patted it back, and pretty soon we had a cliff and a new wall, thicker than before. Brigid set off then to bring back the buildings. I heard her humming. Pretty soon there were noble houses, and barracks, and a new farm, redesigned to put the chickens farther from the potential water hazard. I spent time on the wall, making it heavier and higher, better able to stand the rigors of the weather. Then she drew in the roads she had wanted before but that I had convinced her she couldn't have.   We went knee deep into the water to rinse off. "I'm proud of you, Brigid." "Why?" "You didn't quit." I talked to her a little bit about realizing she was depressed after the hurricane, but that I had seen how she buckled down and made it right again. I told her that was important. "It's a better castle, too, isn't it?" she replied. "Yeah, it's a lot safer now." She smiled. "And it's got roads," I added. "Yeah," she agreed matter-of-factly. She looked up at me from under the bill of her cap. Her eyes twinkled in the late afternoon sun. "It's got roads."  Daily Persistence is © Ron Collins |
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"The satisfaction of actually finishing that album is still something that I'm very grateful for." - Emmylou Harris - On working on "The Ballad of Sally Rose" |
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