A primitive tripod built by a stranger stands conspicuously at the beach, its base buried in the granular, pebbly sand. This sand is not the soft sand seen at most beaches. The pieces are larger, and when you walk on this beach, it “slips” a bit here and there, making you think that the Earth is experiencing a tremor. Really, it’s only you sliding just a wee bit back and forth. Into this pebbly surface, the stranger plunged his three poles.
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| The stranger's tripod. |
I like to wonder about people who leave deliberate signs of
passing, using only natural materials they find around them. Some like to build structures. Others like to create balancing pieces. Still others like to create works of
art. They know when they leave that
someone else will find what they did and wonder about them, and I guess that’s
why they do it. It’s their way of
saying, “I was here,” and when they do it using the number three, it’s that
much more memorable to me. Call me
crazy, but when I saw this, I wanted to light a fire, sit beneath the pyramid,
and keep a vigil through the night.
Did you ever notice how things like to happen in
threes? Nature loves the number
three. From the three dimensional world
humans can perceive, to the three states of matter, i.e., solid, liquid, and gas, to
the three stable particles, i.e., protons, neutrons, and electrons. Nature just loves the number three. It’s a great way to begin stable
building. But I’ll bet whoever built
this tripod wasn’t thinking of any of that.
The question in his mind was simply how to get a structure built.
He also didn’t know that Nature was watching him and laughing
and saying, “Is that all you got?” She
can be a real boor at times.
