The other week Jen and I got to go to the beach while visiting Valencia, Spain. The beach with Maisie is much more fun now that she’s a bit older! The last time she just kinda laid under the umbrella! But this time we went down to close to the water and started to dig a hole together. What started as a hole became a castle that ‘we’ were building together. As we were building this mini-kingdom of sand together a number of things were going through my mind about the spiritual kingdom that we’re also building. I’m not so sure I want to draw any conclusions to my story, so I’ll just tell it and let you see the metaphors you see…
As we were building this castle ‘together’ Maisie was doing her thing. She was taking up handfuls of mushy sand and putting them in other places. She would even attempt to put the sand on top of the little towers we had made. But there were times where she was kind of missing the point…you would think that at the old age of one and a half and with all of 3 beach trips under her belt she would be a pro castle builder, but she’s not. She was digging out sand from outside of the walls and putting the sand inside of the walls. I was quickly realizing that I was the one building the castle and Maisie was just actively participating…her real contribution wasn’t in what she did or didn’t do. Or in what she did or didn’t accomplish. The point is that we were doing something together. Regardless of her contribution, I found joy in working together because she is my daughter.
Castles made of sand are never meant to last forever. Eventually, the water wins. Our castle did ok. We built it in a spot where the sand was still wet, but water would still get to it. Our first rush of water didn’t make Maise too happy. Not really because of what it did to the castle, but because it got her! She wasn’t a big fan of the Mediteranean water taking residence in her diaper and creating goose bumps on her legs. Despite Maisie’s situation, the castle held up pretty well! The mote was filled with water and the walls didn’t get completely destroyed. But there was some maintenance to be done and we learned some things about how to better handle the next wave.
Eventually, we had done all we could do…or had the patience to do…and we went back up to the blanket to eat lunch. As we walked away, I got a different perspective on our tiny, one building, kingdom. While working on it close up I thought that it looked pretty good, but seeing it from a distance proved that I was wrong. One tower was all crooked, and it was much smaller than I thought. But it was what it was…and Maisie and I did it together. I had fun and she had fun….and it’s a memory I’ll hold on to.
While watching people walk by I saw them look at our castle. Some almost didn’t see it (see paragraph above) and almost stepped on it. Other kids did see and looked like they wanted to step on it. Part of me wanted to yell, “Hey! Watch out!” or “Don’t even think about stepping on that! It’s mine!” The truth is…that castle is only owned by time…and wanting to hold on to or preserve it was nearly futile.
I just decided that it’s better to be grateful for what it was, knowing that Maisie and I will build many more castles together.
Maybe even bigger ones.
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