It was a lovely spring morning. The blue sky was mirrored in the otherwise teal, glacial-fed waters. A slight breeze carried the salty air to land. Seagulls coasted lazily on the breeze, searching for fish in the waters below. And I stood in the middle of it all, gratefully lifting my face to the sun.
After the sometimes violent storms of fall and winter, and an unusually wet early spring, mornings like this felt like an apology. An apology which was readily accepted, with a quickly fading memory of winter. Amazingly, the beach was deserted except for the kids and me on this glorious morning.
The kids had spilled out of the car doors and scattered in as many different directions the moment we got there. As I breathed in the morning air and wandered peacefully along the water line, they raced. Kathryn, 9, challenged me to a rock-skipping competition. Which I have always won, but the margin of victory is narrowing each time. Benson, 5, delighted his little sisters by picking up the biggest beach rocks he could find and heaving them into the shallow water. Each splash was followed by a brief dousing for the bystanders and squeals for more. The little girls, Emma and Martha, each newly 3 years old, experimented in their new Winnie-the-Pooh shoes to see just how close they could come before the chilling water penetrated their shoes and socks.
I stood at water’s edge for a moment, shielding my eyes from the sun, looking around in all directions, trying to breathe it all in. The snow-covered mountains rising abruptly out of the water. The beach, glistening with crushed quartz rock. The ocean and sky, both so often forceful, now equally at peace. I turned in full circle several times trying to memorize what I saw. Then closed my eyes briefly to listen. The gulls, gentle waves, and four of our five children laughing and yelling at each other.
“Ben, get me some wood, fast. Let’s build a dam!” Kathryn hollered, interrupting my thoughts.
“All right, Ka’hryn!” came his eager response.
I opened my eyes and looked down at the sand. The tide was seeping in quickly. High tide was still an hour away. I looked down at my feet, predicting how many minutes I could remain exactly where I stood until, like Emmy and Marthy, the chilling cold would penetrate my shoes and socks.
“Here’s a really big one!” Ben yelled enthusiastically as he dragged an old two-by-four over to where his sister was working.
“Good job! Go get more. Fast!”
I watched them, smiling and shaking my head. “You know,” I started to say. And stopped. They probably didn’t need my input on their dam construction. They would find out soon enough on their own that it took a lot more than driftwood to hold back the tide.
Marthy and Emmy, too, started to gather stray pieces of wood, sticks and small branches. Laughing, and jabbering, they carried or dragged the pieces over to the “dam”.
It’s not very often that I find myself with time enough to stand and watch the tide go in or out. I notice when it’s high, or low. But very rarely have I stood on the beach at water’s edge and watched it seep and spiral it’s way up the beach. It runs, and swirls into every indentation on the beach, growing as it goes. It seems harmless enough as it dribbles into cracks in the rocks. Easy enough to dam, one would think. Just little dribbles. With the weight of the ocean behind them.
“I need more! I need more!” came the excited cry from Kathryn.
“I got this great big one!” was the equally excited call from her little brother as he dragged a tree limb across the beach. “This oughtta do the job,” he added confidently.
“Good one, Ben!” came his sister’s praise.
“Hey! Hey!” Marthy pointed at the little rivulets of water seeping through the seemingly sturdy structure.
“That’s okay, Marth. It’s just little bits of water,” Ben reassured her.
“I can’t believe how fast it’s coming in!” Kathryn yelled to me.
“Yep. It’s almost high tide,” I answered. “How’s it going?”
She looked at me and smiled, I think knowing the futility of their efforts. I worked hard not to say anything.
“It’s okay,” she said. “Mom, do you think we can really stop the tide?”
I smiled back. Shrugged. Picked up another skipper and threw it.
I walked down the beach a few yards listening to their conversations. The excited tones of their talk. They were working hard. And all the while the water kept seeping and swirling, growing its way up the beach.
“Our kids are building a dam to hold back the tide,” I mumbled to myself in thought as I walked. And for a moment I thought of all the times in my own life that I have done the same. Working with every effort to stop the inevitable. Pretending I could do it. If I just tried hard enough. And little set-backs weren’t really signs of futility. Just little bits of water.
I turned around again, watching them work. They moved fast, together, as a team. But each step they took quickly filled with water. Finally, laughing and wet, they stepped back from their dam.
“Hey Mom,” came the yell. “We almost did it!”
I smiled. “Yep, you almost did,” I hollered back.
As we piled back into the car I looked around once again at the mountains, the water, the sky, and the beach. And at the now-abandoned dam project where our kids had spent the morning working. Using driftwood to hold back the tide.
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