Sand castles

Yesterday evening about 8, I drove out to Folly Beach to sit awhile in my chair and wait for sunset and the close of the day. I read a favorite book off and on. It was one of those summer days that was too perfect. We’ve had rain recently to quench the drought, and today the temps were in the upper 80s, there was a nice breeze, just right, and the skies -- how can I describe them? Such clarity that all the colors were saturated perfectly and crystal clear. The blues were unmistakeably blue. The white cumulous clouds seemed irridescent. The Spartina grass in the marshes has attaned its soft, pastel summmer-green shades, signifying to me that life in this estuarine environment must now be at its summer peak.

In short, the summer world I observed all around me seemed to be in perfect harmony. Everything was just right. It was a day when you could really feel glad to be alive and experiencing all this beauty in the world.

As the light of day gradually yielded to evening’s lenghtening shadows, and the people who had been out on the beach went inside or left for the day, I found myself contemplating the moment when I, too, would pack up and head in. I waited a little longer. Thin clouds over the ocean glowed with color. The sky was still illuminated, but the land was growing darker. However, land and sky would soon be as one as night fell.

As I listened to the surf’s ceaseless sound upon the shore, I noticed, as I sometimes do, individual waves crashing on the beach with quick, little jabs at the shore. They stand out. They quickly subside. The larger waves have a rather full-throated roar about them as their full force spends itself in a smooth outpouring of energy, rhythmic and soothing most of the time, but sometimes strangely discordant as it momentarily seems like noise instead of the steady, gentle sound I’ve heard all my life at that same place on the Atlantic Ocean.

I watched an older couple walking along the beach, just before I went in and recall thinking how robust and healthy they seemed. Middle or late 60s I would guess, but there was something about them that seemed to defy the march of time. I suppose it is good to be as vigorous and active as you can be at any age.

One of the things I like most about being at the beach is the chance to observe people. Families are here now for their vacations, and I see all the various generations enjoying their summer routines.

And, when I go out to take my place in this seasonal tableaux of carefree existence, I almost invariably see someone’s abandoned sand castle, sometimes elaborate, sometimes very simple, left standing until the next incoming tide crumbles its loosely-packed walls, turrets, and moats and sends them all back into the ocean.

As I observed one up close the other day, I noticed that the builder’s name, Jared, was inscribed on one of the walls. I wondered how much fun he had had constructing that castle out of his imagination, and I remembered how I would sit for what seemed like hours at the water’s edge letting wet sand drip from my fingers to ornament my own youthful sand castles, watching closely the approach of the waves and building up my fortress ceaselessly as the water washed parts of it away. Then, finally, a big waves would come and inundate the whole thing, and I’d have to take my plastic bucket and shovel and go to another spot and start all over again. As children we didn’t seem to mind starting all over. It was all play and not the serious business of older kids and adults.

Sand castles. I haven’t built one in a long time.