"Oh, love me tonight, for I may never see you again"
Bruce Springsteen 4th of July Asbury Park
I walked the beach last week, the north end of Brigantine Island, a beach that I love literally or is that litorally. My first time since Sandy and a place to fully realize her power. The storm itself passed right over my home. But being a distance from the ocean, well nestled near the back bay, I didn't see Sandy in her full fury. But this beach (and many places north of here) is where She made vacuum of our cherished illusions of permanence. The beach has changed. Twice as large at low tide , and I imagine twice as small at high tide. The line between the thick underbrush of dune grass, cockles, goldenrod, thorny vines and the beach erased, The marshes are sand covered, and the beaches are denuded. And with that, things once hidden are revealed. There is a familiar piece of the beach with some pilings which are obviously the ruins of a dock. Now as the picture above shows, other more elaborate structures long sleeping under the sand are revealed. And of course one island further north, long beach island. Structures that once stood in daylight, are shorn, and what remains buried beneath sand.
In a night, what was is no more, and what was no more is. And we are surprised, aghast at the gentle billows turned savage, and so much of what we called ours, swept away by an indifferent hand. What once moved is stilled, and all is movement that we thought stillness. Still we makes our plans, and build our castles, forgetting that they will be toppled, and we will be stilled,. Everything we do, everyplace we go, everyone we love, everything we are will disappear. And so those forgotten ruins, provide a kind of solace, the forgotten will return. Either that or embrace the oblivion.
Officially, I do the latter, well read in the Upanishads. And yet as it approaches, I furiously exercise body and mind, assembling bucket lists, and arranging play dates. There is little to be gained by denying what is evident from the first blink in the morning to the final blink at night. I work assiduously on the castle. Here is the room where I study sanskrit, and here is the room where I struggle to understand algebra and physics... (Has that sand just become too dry to bolster those walls?) And of course the top floor is completely given over to walk in closets, and make up tables, and perhaps a few too many mirrors. Gotta get that castle done! So I can get a nice look from a high tower at approaching seas.
