By: Mike Munsil The sun is not as strong as the wind is today, on Padre Island. It is early in the summer, the best time of year to play in shallow water and mock the gulfen waves. I stand on the loose dry sand of the beachfront. The first row of sand dunes rise behind and the gentle waves roll in from the Gulf and break across sand bars before me. Far down the beach, my wife waves to me. Nineteen years ago we would have been walking together, hand in hand, searching for shells along the water's edge. Now I stay to watch my sons as she walks on without me, alone but continuing our tradition. The sand dollars she is so good at finding will decorate our Christmas tree, come winter. After a while I turn and look to the boys. Number one son is waist-deep in water in the trough between sand bars, where the big fish feed. A mullet jumps, startling him. His simple joy in playing with the waves changes instantly. A moment ago he was happy and now he is truly terrified and he races to me, to his rock and his safety. I hold him in my arms and he lays his head against my shoulder. He is so tall now. Those who don't know my older son always wonder at his childlike emotions, unacceptable in a double-digit boy. They don't understand the life he lives, the scary world all around him. Half his life was spent as just another abandoned child, in an orphanage where one small room was his whole world for five years. This half, this life that we share now is defined by his illness, the bipolar nature that drives him to extremes. It drives us as well, to desperate searches for simple pleasures that so many people take for granted. We came here to Padre Island in search of those simple pleasures, stalking childhood memories for our sons. The island is a perfect place for memories. Number two son has come to us now and puffs up his little chest. He is sure to take advantage of the scare, to tease his older brother. It is just too good a chance to miss and my older son is the perfect target for childhood malice. "Stupid Pablo, afraid of a little fish! We got goldfish bigger than that!" Another moment passes and the fists are flying. I step in to protect them, one from the other. Number two is tough, but he only lived several years in the orphanage. He didn't learn to fight like his older brother did, just to survive, but Jean Pierre is no piker. He gives as good as he gets. Later, after I have separated the boys and glared away the stares of nearby bathers, I explain to number one. "Little mullet swim with you," I say, "chasing littler fish still. It is like a game they play, and sometimes the bigger fish play also. When they do, the mullet jump in fear and fly away." "Like me, Dad?" he asks. "Like you." I say with a grin. "Like you my son." and he smiles and laughs with me. After a while Pablo is ready to go back into the surf and Jean Pierre is there waiting for him. Number one pretends not to be afraid, and number two pretends to be a mullet, flailing wildly at the surf and screaming in fishy fear. Pablo picks him up and ploughs the water with his head, calling for sharks to come and get it. It is time to step in, yet again. I am not surprised; the boys fight with all the regularity of waves beating the shore. Their shouts and screams are always there, wearing away at any brief moment of peace of mind that I can find. Offshore storms drive the waves onto the seashore. They drive the Sargasso weed also, into serried ranks that lie before me. Fresh seaweed is gold and sharp-edged in the sun. This seaweed has dried to red-brown. It smells. It divides the land from the sea and forms a rotten blanket laid down by the surf. Taken together, the waves and the weed remind me of the storms that cloud my son's mind and the gulf that lies between him and most people. One transient thought here at the water's edge has forced me nearly to tears and I turn my face away from those who are closest. Serenity eludes me. I find no peace here and turn my mind to deeper things. # The sands of Padre Island are coquina; powder-fine broken shell that traps the unwary driver and sifts its way into every crevice. Time and the wind formed the sands into an elongate island, a barrier bar where we come to play. Most people see the dunes and the beach and think that is all there is to it. They see only the tops of the islands that are merged into this long strip of father's land. They are unaware of the island roots that lie below our feet. If you ask them, the island begins where the water ends, and ends where the sky begins. It was made just for them, and even the names reflect human paternity: Padre Island is "Father's Land" and the Laguna Madre is the "Mother lagoon". Every now and then the tops of the islands are |
blown away by a
hurricane, or excavated for another high-rise hotel. There are
investors, entrepreneurs who make their fortunes destroying the sand
dunes just here, so that tourists can see the dunes over there, from
over-priced balconies. And there are people whose lives are not
complete without the sound of the offshore wind hammering its way
across the shore. They love Nature up close where they can grab it.
They love the Natural wind in their face and Organic food on their
plates. But they separate themselves from the natural world by their
insistence on keeping others out, and letting themselves in. If you
ask, this island was made for them, just for them and their
convenient labels. The Nature-lovers are sanctified in their beliefs
and condemnation of Man. "Let us not despoil Nature.", they say, and
climb into their cars and drive off to protest the exploitation of
oil and geologists like me, who find it. They are Nature's Own, the
Chosen Ones, but to my eyes they are unNatural in their adoration of
Nature as separate from Man.
# Given time and an overburden the island sands will become a cream-colored limestone. The ancient roots of the islands will crack and sink and become buried by miles of sediment. Geologists search deep underground for the roots of islands like these. Where they merge, the island-roots become targets for our drills. We cut the rock and bring fragments back to the surface. We peer at button-sized chips of ancient islands and figure their potential as reservoirs for oil. When the sand is coarser than the sands of Padre Island, the larger pore spaces make good reservoir space for oil. When the sand is too fine the pore space can be greater than we see in coarse sand, but the openings are often too small to allow oil to move in, or out. This type of porosity can fool us into believing that the reservoir is there. We fall for the oldest of lines; if you build it, they will come. Nature built the reservoir and we come looking, but in the end, it all comes down to dollars. If the rock doesn't prove its worth on the accountant's balance sheets, we will drill no more. Even when the accountants approve, this kind of venture can fail. Moving oil through pore spaces takes pressure, and we can only press so much, from so many miles closer to the sky. Sometimes we press too hard or in the wrong way, and deep underground the rock may fail and close in around the well. Then the hole may be abandoned and the search continued elsewhere. When we push too hard on Padre Island, when too many of us crowd the shore where the island meets the sky, the island-tops may fail and the dunes may be gone forever. The island roots will remain, but it is only the tops the tourists ever see. The same can be said for my eldest son. When the tops are gone most people around him only see desolation. I am the one who sees more. I see the roots that remain. # It is the end of three long days of sun and sand, and as I drive through the night the boys are sound asleep in their seats. Number two son is still small enough to be comfortable in any position, and his seat is large enough to contain him. Number one has lain down across the back seat of the van. His long form crosses the width of the van and he sleeps with his head canted up against one side window, his feet planted against the other. I can hear my boys breathing over the drumming roar of traffic rushing home. I am alone with my thoughts and plans and I write this piece in my mind's eye, a waking dream of pouring my soul into scratches in the sand for passers-by to read before the tide comes in. My wife left hours ago, before we began our return. She has flown overseas once again to attend to the needs of others. Their mistakes breed environmental disasters that she works to avoid. She spends more time away than with us now. Her absence brings in the money we build our lives around, but leaves a mother-shaped gap in our world that money can never fill. I miss her gentle voice. Three more days have gone by and we have built memories from them. They form the roots of islands that will sustain my sons in their lives. Sooner or later the tops of the memories will fade, but the roots of our time on Padre Island will survive, even if only in the undergrounds of our conscious minds. Jean Pierre will grow up and move on and build a life of his own. Pablo may never grow emotionally, or become more acceptable even as his body ages. We just don't know. The doctors cannot tell us what will come. They can only make vague guesses and predict the worst that can be; the HMO's do not pay for the dispensation of hope. It is up to us to find it, on the island, in our memories or perhaps in the soft pale gleam of a perfect seashell at day's end. # On this dark and lonely drive back home I have finally found peace for a few hours. My musings have sustained me and I take comfort in the thought that the islands that bound this gulf will endure in one form or another; that they and my boys have their places in my world. For now, that is enough for me. |