One of the more profound experiences I had in NorCal was sitting on the beach with my son exploring in the sand. He came across a piece of driftwood buried but for a paper sized area just above the surface. He started digging at it to try and pull it up. After a few minutes the scope of the job (albeit still not fully in perspective) started to seem daunting to him and he came to a crossroads where I knew he wanted to finish the task, but he didn't think he could. So I egged him on, more out of a desire to see him do it than anything, so he set to sizing up the project. And holy hell, what a project it was. What looked like a reasonable sized piece of wood engulfed in the sand soon became a log roughly 8 feet long and about 12 inches in diameter. I am doing my best to be conservative with those figures. I think it was actually longer, but the actual size is really secondary at this point. He drug the surface of the log until he had the top exposed. It became VERY clear that this was going to be a two man show, and for the next minutes (maybe an hour) it was man against nature. Alex and I were set on undoing the great forces of the ocean that buried this log, so we began.
At first it seemed like we could extricate the object with some good use of cupped hands and dog-style digging. So there we were, two kids flinging sand back between our legs in a spray. Zip, zip, zip our hands dug into the sand and slowly we started to make progress. I'd like to say I looked up and saw that we were nearing completion, or were half way there. But no, we had just scratched the surface. We needed tools, and soon with pieces of driftwood in hand we had a fully functioning excavation site in progress. Pushing the top sand aside to keep it from falling into the trenches we were leaving. I must have had to stop a half dozen time and fight back the light headed feelings before returning to work.
Slowly, and painstakingly we made our way down one side, then the other. We dug up one end just enough to get a hand hold, and every few minutes I'd make another attempt at freeing the log from it's burial ground. And attempt after attempt I came up short. So back to work we'd go. Loosening more and more wet sand from the surface. Heaving great piles of sand aside, and digging deeper and deeper until at last I just knew I was gonna move it. I laced my fingers below the log and with a determined tug I pulled up and in an instant the log, now free from more chains still refused to budge. So, legs and back screaming. Lungs gasping for air, we set back to work. Again. Taking a short break to collect my strength, my son at my side, I approached the trunk of this baby redwood. Another mighty tug and then without warning the bounds gave way and suddenly I was holding the weight of this waterlogged tree in my grasp.
I looked down at Alex and saw him beaming with pride that we had done it. PERSEVERANCE Two men pitted their strength and more importantly their will against this object and only through determination did we overcome. That was the lesson I wanted him to learn. That if we had tried until we had nothing left. Collapsed in the sand, exhausted and still nothing, that would be admirable. But as long as we had fight left in us, we would fight. And standing there with that log in my grasp it became clear that we needed to send a little message to the body of water who put this here.
Doing my best world's strongest man imitation (Fingal Fingers FTW) I hefted the log to my chest and let the other end pivot. Slowly the log rose until it was vertical and with a mighty push I threw it onward toward the ocean. And again, and again, until finally the sand hardened and it could be rolled. And thank god for that because I don't know how many more lifts I had in me. So now, Alex and I took our places at each end, half kicking, half shoving the enormous log toward the surf. And soon enough, the first laps of the ocean touched the log, and with each outbound surge, he and I pushed the log further and further out, until finally with a surge, the ocean flowed beneath the log and lifted it, and carried it 20 feet back up the beach and deposited it unceremoniously there as if to mock us. So we pushed and rolled it back again until finally it was buoyant again. I congratulated him on a great job and marveled over our achievement and beat a quick retreat to higher ground lest the ocean give us the finger again.
I never saw that log again. I like to think that it is sailing across the waves miles out to sea. Even though more likely as the tide was INCOMING it just got pushed back up the beach again. But never mind that. For those moments we two men overcame nature and having risen to the challenge ran away before nature got her final say in.
PERSERVERANCE
"Failure after long perseverance is much grander than never to have a striving good enough to be called a failure." -George Elliot
"I do not think that there is any other quality so
essential to success of any kind as the quality of perseverance. It
overcomes almost everything, even nature." -John D. Rockefeller
"If your determination is fixed, I do not counsel you
to despair. Few things are impossible to diligence and skill. Great
works are performed not by strength, but perseverance." -Samuel Johnson
"Permanence, perseverance and persistence in spite of
all obstacle s, discouragement s, and impossibilities: It is this, that
in all things distinguishes the strong soul from the weak." -Thomas Carlyle
No comments:
Post a Comment