Proof

When I was growing up we spent August each year on Martha's Vineyard. A couple of times, my cousins--Andy, Jacy and Brandon--came to visit us there; these were probably the best days of the best vacations we ever had. Andy and I are the same age, Jacy and Alison the same age, and Brandon one year younger. As kids, we were more than cousins, as most people understand the relationship, but not quite like siblings either; I could see, even as a young child, that their relationships with each other were different than their relationships with us, as well as from mine with Alison. But in most ways, for all of us, I think, this was a good thing. Sibling relationships can be so intense, so fraught. As a group of five, we worked better than we did in any other combination, better really than we did as familial groups of two or three.

I tell you this as background because I want to tell you a story. One of the things we used to do when we were on Martha's Vineyard was, of course, go to the beach. We always went to the same beach, and if you walked far enough down the beach, past the blankets of families with coolers and teenagers with portable radios and children scampering in the froth at the demarcation line between water and shore, there was a little stream coming from a little pond, and the water from the stream ran straight into the ocean, slashing the beach in two. On calm days the slash was more like a scratch, hardly visible from the beach entrance, easy to walk over for children and adults alike. On stormy days, or those days after a storm, the stream widened and at nine, ten, eleven, I could not step over it--could not always, even, back up and run as fast as I could toward it and take a giant leap--legs stretched wide as I went airborne--landing with a jolt up each leg on the other side: sandy, immensely satisfied.

Now keep in mind this stream was shallow. All a person had to do was walk right through. But if a person was, say, ten, and stubborn, and had decided that it was a display of weakness to simply walk right through, a person would be challenged and a little giddy with the proposition of trying to make a sailing leap in the air, especially if there was anyone around to be impressed. One day, walking on the beach with my father and grandfather, the stream seemed especially wide and rough. In fact, my father had to make a leap himself to cross it, and my grandfather smiled at me, extended his hand. I think he was going to walk through it with me, maybe thought that I was nervous about traversing it solo, either through or over, which I was. A little. But not too nervous to attempt the jump. My grandfather went first, not much more than what I called a giant step for him, and he and my dad stood waiting on the other side. I backed up. I made a false start, dug my heels in the sand. And then I ran, ran as fast as I could, and pushed off just at the right moment--you feel it in your bones when that happens--and landed beside them. We kept walking. I remember this still.

But that is not the point of this story, although it is related. What I wanted to tell you about was the dam. One morning, at the beach with our cousins, we decided to build a dam. Not just a dam for a sand castle, but for the stream, the stream that ran vertically from the pond behind the dunes into the ocean and on this day was medium-sized--not rushing and wide, not a mere scratch, but strong enough and big enough to inspire the idea of damming.We came up with a strategy, a plan. Andy and I were in charge--always, always in charge. Our charges were alternately obedient and defiant, with a soupcon of either glee or annoyance. We set up a sort of assembly line, in stages. We hauled rocks, first, and built up the base with them. We added more rocks, and filled the crevices with smaller rocks. We packed grass and mud on top of all of the rocks. We did this for hours, in the hot midday sun, for most of a very long day. At dusk, when my parents and grandparents were starting to make motions of packing up farther down the beach, near but not next to the families with picnic blankets, the teenagers with radios, we stopped the flow of water. It astounded us. It didn't last very long. The next day, only a few rocks remained at the base of what had been our dam. We didn't care.

I have been writing since I was four, maybe, five? For as long as I can remember. I have taken a thousand writing classes, in a hundred different venues, and I have heard the admonishment, "Show, don't tell," in every possible amateur and professional scenario. I am not going to explain what I think this story, these two little stories, scenarios, mean. I don't think I have to. And although they're no great shakes--I just wrote them in a half an hour without editing more than a word or two--but still I like them much better than anything I could have written about childhood in an expository fashion. And, I think they have much more to say. I want to stop trying to tell people things. It doesn't work; or it doesn't work as well as the thing itself, painted with words as carefully as I am capable of. When it's right, it speaks for itself.