25 Sep Sandcastles at High Tide
Every sixty seconds the digital frame on our kitchen counter offers me another reminder of how fast time moves. The images tumble out in no particular order, first days of school beside ice cream-sticky smiles, winter coats followed by swimsuits. As I wipe crumbs from the counter, I glance toward an image of the girls crouched low in the sand, bent over an ambitious sandcastle with towers and a moat built just inches from the waves.
The picture froze the castle intact, but I remember more than what the photo shows. I remember the sun warm on my shoulders as the tide crept closer, and the girls working with serious concentration, faces bent low over the sand. I smiled, recalling the kinds of stories they would tell. The princess would live in the tower, but she wasn’t waiting for anyone to save her, she was the boss of the whole kingdom. The dragon couldn’t get past the wall because she had built it herself, and she was the most excellent builder in all of the land.
And then the wave came, rushing in and flattening everything in a breath.
I held my breath too, bracing for their disappointment. Ella stood, hands on her hips, and declared, “The dragon smashed it.” Without missing a beat, Emma pointed to the wet sand, where sunlight reflected off the grains like tiny mirrors, scattering into glimmers. “But look, it’s now the land of glitter.”
To them, the castle’s collapse wasn’t a loss. It was a plot twist, folded neatly into the story they were already telling.
So much of life is like that sandcastle at high tide. Precious not in spite of its impermanence but because of it. We are asked to begin again more times than we would ever choose. Most of the time, we don’t like it. We don’t see glitter. We see what’s been taken. We feel the sharp edge of loss. Something precious swept away before we were ready. Doors closing before we had found another way through.
Each time, life pries our hands from people, from places, from versions of ourselves that cannot come with us into what is next. It does not pause to check if we are ready. It does not wait for permission. It moves forward on its own terms, steady as the tide.
Maybe that’s the gift children hold onto longer than we do. They build sandcastles inches from the waves. They know the tide will come, and they create anyway. Because what feels like breaking apart can also be the ground clearing. The sand left glittering. A foundation waiting for what comes next.