Sisyphus on Sanibel

Ben and I just spent five days on Sanibel Island with my mom. I’ve been going there since I was 7. The island has changed with the passing 42 years, just about everything is slick and rich now, where before it wasn’t much more than a general store and some motels full of fisherman and shellers.

On thing that hasn’t changed is the white sand beach—fine sand almost like powder. Watching Ben in the hot sun, I wrote this:

My son is trying to put the beach back into the ocean. His blue plastic shovel drips with the fine powdered sand of Sanibel. In just two days he has learned not to step on someone else’s sand castles, not to fear the waves, and to almost like the feel of the sand in his toes.

He purposefully clumps up from the water line, his beach shoes caked with the fine glop the wet sand makes. Bending down, he fills his shovel, then walks back to the gentle waves breaking on the sand. There, he raises his right arm above his head, puts his left leg out behind him raising his foot above the water. Balancing in that way, he tips the shovel and lowers his gaze to watch the dripping sand fall into the surf.

A friendly couple with a northern New England accent stops in their morning beach walk. “Good morning young man! Are you putting the beach back into the ocean?” the brassy woman asks, hands on her ample hips and her smile twinkling.

“Yes!” Ben says, beaming up at her, sand still dripping into the foam.