Of Sand and Sea
By Sonya Spillmann
@sonyaspillmann
Golden light shimmers off my daughter’s tan skin. “Get your sandals,” I say in encouragement, trying to keep her focused. My husband and other kids consolidate our beach chairs, a bocce set, a netted bag of plastic shovels, sand molds, and frisbees in one big pile under a blue canopy. We plan to leave all this here till the end of the day and for now, we’re going to go home to eat lunch. We’ll be back in an hour.
My youngest likes to stretch moments, any moment, into her own. She squats with her hands plunged into the contents of a plastic bucket. Her mind’s a world away. Earlier in the week, this three-gallon container held ripe sunsweet peaches. Today it holds the things of sand and sea.
“Okay, time to go. Leave the bucket,” I say more directly. My husband and older kids start to walk away, but she’s busy sifting and straining.
“I don’t want to,” she says off-handedly, and I’m not sure if she means leave the beach or the bucket. I turn away and look at the stairs behind us. They lead up over a dune toward the road and the house.
“Okay, it’ll be here after lunch. Let’s go.” My body faces her, but my head twists to see my oldest son’s head walk out of sight.
Viv stands up, her red flowered bikini gaping over her tiny frame. “Can you carry it?” she asks, arms extended, hands open, pointing to the bucket. I have a chair hanging off my shoulder and the straps of a bag full of towels in the crevice of my other arm.
“No, honey.” I’m not going to carry a heavy bucket full of sand and water home with my arms already full, just to bring it back here again.
“But I want it,” she insists, digging in her will and her feet.
“We’re coming back! It’ll be here. You can leave it.”
“It’s mine.”
“It’s sand.”
“My creatures are in here,” she says with sadness, referring to the dead clam shells she collected all morning.
“Viv, let’s just go eat lunch.” The sun rays burn fire onto my skin. I start to walk then turn back to my daughter. She hasn’t moved. “If you want it, you’ll have to carry it,” I say at last. And with a decided tilt of her head, she lifts the sloshing bucket with two hands, its thin plastic strap straining under so much weight. She clunks it forward, knees banging, biceps curled, jaw set.
We walk, me in front of her, up twenty-five wooden stairs. Then we cross fifteen yards of boardwalk. Sensing our widening gap, I slow. I take a deep breath. I ignore the line of sweat dripping down my midline and the other cascading down my back. I descend ten steps to the road and wait.
At seven, she’s small, but in her attachment and determination she lumbers, frustrated, slowly slowly slowly to join me before we cross the street together. We have to walk past five more houses to get to our rental home. At the base of the stairs, her eyes narrow, her mouth pinches. Her face blooms blotched-red and her arms tremble tight. She clunks down in slow motion, foot, bucket, water-slosh, foot, body, water-slosh. Her mouth folds. Mad tears start to fall. “Help me, Mom,” she cries.
“Come on,” I say. The heat, the sweat, the ridiculousness of her not being able to part with this sand and this water for this single hour feels like a fire in the back of my throat.
“I can’t carry it,” she says. “It’s too heavy.” We cross the road.
“It’s wet sand, Viv. Of course it’s heavy. You can dump it.”
“But I want it,” she says.
“Then you have to carry it.”
“But I can’t!” she cries. Her surrendered plea could break a mother’s heart.
Except mine doesn’t.
Maybe it’s because my hands are already full. Maybe it’s because I told her to leave it, and she chose to take it. Maybe it’s because the bucket is full of sand and water. The ingredients for concrete. The two things we have played with for hours this morning, and the two things to which we will go back this afternoon. She stands with locked knees, fists clutching the strap, biceps straining against the weight. She meets my eyes, then lets out one last peal of frustration: “Can you help me?”
Another mother may have made a different choice. Another mother may have talked her through, swooped in, or avoided this scene all together. Another mother may have soothed or coaxed, molded the moment into some form of magic or even an oh-friend-let-me-tell-you-the-time-my-daughter learning opportunity.
“No,” I say. No, my dearest child. I love you, but I will not carry this bucket of wet sand.
Then from deep within her little frame, she releases a scream, guttural and angry. She throws (throws!) the bucket down to the ground, but in its heaviness, the weight wins and the bucket lands flat on its bottom, contents all intact. She picks it up again and slams it down. Then again. Over and over the bucket lands upright. Finally, she lets out a growl of a yell and starts scooping out the sand with her two hands, slamming wet muck against the asphalt, like a potter throwing down clay. Tears stream down her face.
I stand there watching, not indifferent, but wholly separate.
Recently, someone asked me about my mom, about our relationship, and before I knew what was happening, my face was in my hands, and I sobbed. Since she died, I’ve grieved her absence throughout my life. Of course. But I’ve also grieved what I almost can’t name: how difficult I was during my teens, all the tension we had right up until the end.
Seeing my daughter carry this bucket, for whatever reason, it reminds me of me—of all I’ve held onto through the years. How I can’t seem to let go of so much that was left unsaid, so much left undone. My own cement load of all I can’t resolve.
And then there’s a moment like this, when I mysteriously step into my own mother’s shoes. And I sense both her peace and her encouragement: lay this burden down.
Bucket mostly empty, pile of sand at her feet, Viv walks over to me and slips her small hand into mine, like a card into its envelope. I squeeze her fingers three times, our little code for I-Love-You, and we start walking to the house together. She sniffles, wipes her nose with the back of my hand, then quietly says, “I love you too, Mom.”
How many of us hold onto some burden we don’t need to bear? How many of us grow tired and frustrated, but feel like we have to press on? And how often does it take an adult version of a full-blown, red-faced, snot-nosed tantrum before we realize: wait, maybe I don’t need to keep carrying this.
I cannot guarantee I will always be here for my kids. And likely, I will not always be able to help them how they want. But together, we’ll keep learning—what’s ours to carry and what’s worthy of being set down.
Photo by Lottie Caiella.