Once a week, sometimes more, we go to the beach.
Sometimes it’s high tide and prime time, so visiting means navigating crowds. Sometimes it’s such low tide that you can fly a kite—an activity that’s clinically impossible to do without feeling a burst of joy—without running into anyone. Even if you are actually running.
There is sand, and there are waves. Ever moving. Ever the same.
Recently, I visited the sand. I squatted over it, barely touching it with the pads of my fingers. Resisting.
There’s a point with sand where you’re not yet fully submerged. You can still shake it off, leave it behind.
I considered that.
And then I surrendered. I welcomed the grime under my nails, into my pockets, onto my skin.
I sat in it, nestled in, and played.
Sand is crumbled rock. You build a fortress of sand, make it strong, but it can’t withstand the water, because you make it strong by using water. Water, whose movement is incidentally one of the main forces that creates sand in the first place. (I looked it up: also wind, tectonics, and gravity.)
Water always wins, because it keeps moving. It has no heart, no muscle, no brain, no desire. We mere mortals, with our limited lifespans, our depleting willpower, our tiring bodies, our large feelings, cannot compete. But for some reason, it’s fun to play. Maybe to see which shapes we can create, what we can try that we haven’t thought of before. Maybe to test ourselves against nature, to see how long our efforts will last before the next wave wrecks them.
Why?
Why is it so fun to try?
Why is it so enjoyable, so satisfying, to succeed, if only momentarily, before hours of work are destroyed by a single wave?
I think it’s something about the nature of a project. Maybe specifically something about physical projects. You can point to it—for a moment or a minute or an hour. But also: even in this age of knowledge work, we remain physical beings. We get something out of physical activity. Why else do we run when we’re not running away? Why else does it feel so good to be outside? (If we’re dressed for the weather.)
When we moved into our current home, I picked up a paint roller for maybe the second time in my life, and used that, several brushes, and a quick tutorial to paint a simple mural. It was the first time I’d made anything artistic that—while it could be covered—would not be easy to throw away.
It took hours of work over several days, on top of freshly painted walls.
It’s hard for me to express how satisfying it was to see it take shape.
It would have been easy to stop at any point and decide to paint over it with the abundant leftover dominant wall color that still sits next to the washing machine. It would have been easy to slow down and leave it unfinished near the end, like we’ve left boxes, piled in a corner or a closet, for months after moving.
Like the non-mural walls that remain unadorned to this day.
But for once in the realm of home decor, I was determined. And when I completed the wall and it was solidly good enough, I had a sense of accomplishment that lasted for days. Even though I’m not a painter. Even though I’d never be hired to do this for anyone else. Or maybe because of that.
I think perhaps sand gives us the same opportunity. To use our bodies and physical surroundings to do things we wouldn’t normally do. To try new things with low stakes. To work alone or collaboratively. To adapt a project to our desires within the constraints of nature. To challenge ourselves within those constraints. And to know it’ll be there for us the next time we want to try, too.
I built a fort, and it was was fun and fulfilling because that’s what it’s like to build a fort out of sand.
Once you embrace the grime.
This Glass Has Water 