Home Planet: Make your stand by taking high ground

So where do you draw the line?

Where do you decide to put a boundary, a limit, a line in the sand that shouldn’t be crossed?

It’s tricky. I guess it depends on where you’re standing.

When my daughter was a toddler we took her to the beach for the first time. She ran across the sugar white sand of the Gulf of Mexico and stopped at the edge of the sea. She watched the waves move into the shore, lapping closer as the tide came in, skipping out of the way just before the water reached her toes.

Then, in 2-year-old defiance, she drew a line in the sand with the heel of her foot. She traced it along the place where the dry sand met the wet, compacted, beach.

Each time a wave came up she stood defiantly with one hand on her hip, the other pointing at the horizon.

“No,” she shouted.

The waves obeyed, moving back to the ocean. For a time. Then, without warning, a larger wave swept up and erased the mark she’d made.

“No, no, no!” she shrieked, dancing with fury. But her line was gone.

Determined to have her way – she was always determined to have her way – she drew another one. Again she forbade the water to come too close. And again, for a bit, the sea obeyed.

But eventually a wave broke free and rushed onto the shore and smoothed away her boundary.

Another tantrum, then a declaration of war.

She scraped another line, refusing to be distracted or entertained. And because the tide had its own schedule to keep, it didn’t take long to do its worst.

She was completely undone and had to be carried back to the cottage for a nap.

Wrestling her out of her damp suit and into dry clothes, I tried to soothe her and distract her, but she wouldn’t have it.

As I held her in my lap, reading to her, brushing the curls out of her eyes, trying to get her calmed enough to rest, she hiccupped and took shivery breaths. She’d met her match.

That was 20 years ago. But I still think of that day when I’m the one who scratches a boundary – a line of demarcation – and then watches helplessly as it is erased by a tidal wave of circumstances beyond my control. I ought to know better.

I ought to remember what happened the next day.

As soon as we carried our things back down to the beach, setting up camp for a long day in the sand and sun, my daughter went to work. She had a plan.

Dragging her little toy shovel behind her, she etched a deep trench. But this time it wasn’t in harms way. Her line in the sand was higher on the beach. It was a defensible position. A place she could take a stand and win.

She spent the day playing but she kept one eye on her territory.

Smart girl.

This was all running through my mind as I fumed about having watched another invisible line disappear with no way to save it.

To make a mark that will remain – and this has taken me far too long to understand – you have to carefully pick your place before you try to defend it.

The first thing you want to do is find the higher ground.