We are drawn to beaches. Be it a deep expanse of seashore or an intimate cranny of sand tucked into the bend of a river, these places where earth meets water attract us.
A number of years ago we spent some time on Fire Island National Seashore, the barrier beach situated between Long Island and the Atlantic Ocean. The beaches here are vast, and contain the only federal wilderness area in New York State.
Walking along this seashore, picking up and examining the empty shells of sand dollars, snails, and bits of beach glass, I began to consider the sand beneath them. The sand became more than a surface on which to walk, more than a backdrop displaying these other objects. The sand itself had its own story, and a little research on my part helped reveal that story.
It seems that during the last ice age, giant glaciers scraped up large bits of Canada and carried them southward. As the earth warmed and the glaciers melted, these chunks of granite, quartz, and basalt, along with other rocks, were left stranded in their new home off the coast of New York. These rocks became the foundation for both Long Island and its barrier beach, Fire Island. Over the millennia, constant action of wind and wave have broken down much of the rock, creating the beautiful sandy beaches of Fire Island we enjoy today.
Each grain, on its own, retains all of the qualities of the mineral that it is. We can see this in the streaks of color on the beach. The tan and white of quartz, the dark strands of garnet, the darker streaks of magnetite each tell their origin story. So, each grain is a tiny rock itself, while holding a history of connection to a much larger rock.
Over the long span of geologic time, these tiny minerals may find themselves, under the great weight of the ocean, compressed once more into a new rock altogether. And the process of becoming will continue. But even then, formed into an all-new sedimentary rock, these individual grains will maintain their own unique characteristics. They will remain who they are. Quartz will be quartz, feldspar will be feldspar. Their true identities will remain, even in a completely new configuration. Very different minerals will have, under great pressure, formed something entirely new, while retaining their unique qualities as individuals.
From our perspective, the sand beneath our feet is ours to dig in, build castles with, discover treasure on. It offers us, creatures of land, communion with the sea. It offers us a vantage point to the far horizon. At the same time, the sand is on its own journey, involved in a much larger, slower cycle of building up and breaking down. At the moment when a human foot leaves a print in the sand, three time-lines converge. The ephemeral footprint, disappearing with the next high tide, the human connected to the foot, limited to its own life-time, and the sand, tied to its own position on the wheel of the rock cycle. Three very different time-lines, converging in one moment on the beach.
Rachel Carson, in the July 1958 edition of Holiday Magazine, said: “In every outthrust headland, in every curving beach, in every grain of sand, there is a story of the earth.” As observers standing in amazement upon those curving beaches, feeling the grains of sand between our toes, we are witnesses to this story.
To learn more about the origin of Fire Island and the rock cycle:
https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/sedimentary-rock/
Ah. And today you leave us to draw our own conclusions, find our own connections between the nature of sand and our own … our own what? Mortality? Ever changing lives? Oneness with the earth? Yes. And more. I do love your essays, Denise.