Secrets of Sand

By Marie Masters

Some say technology replaces our need to interact with each other. Actually, it’s never been more obvious how much we’re all connected.

People are plugged into “chat” rooms. Teens are “totally” attached to their cell phones. We’re tuned into television shows where real people do “real” things just like us.

So, what’s missing? It’s too easy to say the human touch. There’s plenty of superfluous touching on cable and satellite TV. Maybe technology simply gives us too much of what we want— the whole world at our fingertips—and not enough of what we need, which is the feeling of sand running through our fingers when we take time to build sand castles.

There’s nothing truer or grittier than wet grains of sand sticking to the skin, getting stuck in inconvenient places, and being formed into the most wondrous constructions. Toddlers know this. And parents seem to enjoy such mindless pleasure just as much evidenced by countless scrapbook memories of beach days.

I have only a mental snapshot of a day when my mother took the sand castle experience far beyond piling up bucket-shaped blocks. I was too young to know my exact age; but when Mom got down on her knees next to me in the sand pit in our suburban backyard, I did know it was something special. The sand was wet from a recent rain and prime for working.

At first, Mom was simply performing her motherly duty. “What you doin’ here?” she asked, feigning interest. But then she was into it, too… the sand, that is. And we both began building and creating—and not just some silly sand castle, either. We designed a “sand city.”

We started by scraping a main street and side streets. Then we fashioned almost-square buildings. And when sand wasn’t enough to complete Mom’s artistic vision, she sent me scrounging for twigs to make trees. “Got to have trees, right?”

I liked my job as gopher. So when Mom said to get aluminum foil to make streetlights for Main Street, I ran as fast as I could to retrieve it from the kitchen. Our Anywhere USA was shaping up. But soon I wished those silvery “lamps” would light up because dusk was falling. “Can’t stay out after dark, right?” I asked, as if we both might get in trouble.

“When we’re done,” my mother replied, dismissing my concern. She was in the sand “zone.” So, we dug in and completed our town. And before it turned pitch black, we had finished. We built a sand metropolis together. We stood up and looked down on it like a couple of towering goddesses peering upon the world.

It wasn’t until forty years later, however, that I learned the secret behind Mom’s unexpected creative surge that day. Unfortunately, it took me that long to ask what she might have done with her life if she hadn’t been a mother. She hem-hawed and then answered, “Maybe an architect.” My mind flashed back to us playing in the sand.

It took four decades for me to realize that she was getting to know me, while letting me get to know her.

That day shaped my perspective on sand castles and technology. No hunk of plastic or cluster of wires could be so ingenious. It’s more about who built them and why.

As sand castles melt into the waves, so do dreams.

Marie Masters is a Southeastern Michigan-based writer, who often is inspired by nature and its many blessings. She can be contacted at mariemasters@earthlink.net.