So Are the Days

Background.

That thing sat open for a week and no one even noticed it. Much less reached in and grabbed a cool handful. For years it was the hottest spot in town, but no longer. It was abandoned, in the background.

The sandbox. Cranking up the cover was once a morning ritual, more so than a putting on a pot of coffee or unsheathing a tube of newspaper. Seven years ago we splurged on a covered cedar number because we figured we’d be looking at it for a while. And we did, through a crack in the back door to check on a little downturned head, or out a frosted window to see how high the snow had piled.

Though still there in body, the sandbox’s spirit had long since departed. It hadn’t been occupied in almost two years. The fact that children grow older and change is simultaneously a dagger in the heart and a life-ring thrown from the S.S. Freedom.

“I think we’re done with it,” my daughter pronounced to my great surprise, her arms folded across her chest. Once loath to throw even DumDum wrappers away, lately she’s become way-Shui. “Let’s find a family who needs a sandbox,” she concluded. “Yes, let’s,” I said, mortally bleeding/boarding the ship.

And so, it was last Tuesday that the sandbox got its groove back. I drove it to a lawn where children will use it every day. The timing was impulsive. I’d rented a U-Haul that morning to move a stack of doors from a job site. Why not go ahead and take care of the sandbox too, I figured, since the truck didn’t need to be back until midnight. That’s how things of great importance come and go from your life sometimes. Just from figuring.

The kids were inside cooling off in the A/C while I shoveled the old, bearded sand into a drift of spirea at the edge of the yard. The clumps of moss clinging to the sand’s surface reminded me of treasures left by neighborhood cats on nights we forgot to lower the lid. Once my daughter brought a little brown orb into the house and held it up for us to admire. She’d rolled it in sand to produce an even coating, like a truffle dusted with sugar. Five minutes of handwashing and “never touch”es followed, then a debit charge for fifteen new bags of sand. We got better about the lid after that.

Tunnels and drip castles. A gingham tablecloth to keep out the sun. Shells hidden and found. Feline testosterone. Dishes stolen from the kitchen to shape biscuits and towers. Bucket brigades from the spigot. Tylenol cups for rinsing out eyes. Granules on the floorboards. Grains in the sheets.

On Wednesday morning, my son and I explored the sixteen square feet of new space on the terrace. The sandbox’s footprint was still visible on the pavers, but it quickly faded under Rollerblades and the beating sun. “Check it out, a waterfall,” my son said, gathering the last bit of sand and feeding it through a seam in the stone wall.  “Like sand through the hourglass,” I whispered in a TV voice. “What?” he asked. “Oh,” I laughed. This one I couldn’t explain.