This old shed out by the ocean has seen its better days a long time ago. Buildings have a hard time on the ocean. The weather is usually severe, the wind is powerful, and the constant salt air can be very damaging. Nature has adapted, but she suffers too. Trees often grow crooked and bent, if they grow at all. They also take a very long time to reach maturity, which gives them gnarly, impossibly hard wood that is good for precious little. Many of the garden flowers and vegetables that people take for granted will not grow along the ocean.
However, mankind brings in wood from other areas. This wood has grown tall and strong and
fast. The planks are neat and straight,
and the buildings they make stand in stark contrast to the rest of the
shore. But only for a while. As soon as anything is built, the ocean
begins to go to work on it and claim its toll.
There is a price to pay, and the ocean demands it unceasingly. Woods rot sooner than they might have. Steel rusts within days. The ground shifts, and the building materials
swell and shrink, swell and shrink.
Doors no longer close as they used to, or perhaps they close only
certain months out of the year.
There’s a price to pay for living on the ocean. The plants pay it in stunted and odd growth. The buildings pay it in crumbling and
shifting. And people pay the price,
too. Skin takes a beating and storms
destroy many possessions. So why do we
do it? Why do we live on the ocean? Why do we make things harder for
ourselves? Ask anyone who lives on the
ocean, and they will smile a secret smile.
It’s the ocean’s voice, you see, the voice of heaven. Once you have heard it speak, you wait only
for the next word.
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| An old shed on the ocean. |
