“We are like children building a sand castle. We embellish it with beautiful shells, bits of driftwood, and pieces of colored glass. The castle is ours, off-limits to others. We’re willing to attack if others threaten to hurt it. Yet despite all our attachment, we know that the tide will inevitably come in and sweep the sand castle away. The trick is to enjoy it fully but without clinging, and when the time comes, let it dissolve back into the sea.” 
~Pema Chödrön

I took this random candid shot at the beach at Fort Kochi. The little family looked really cosy with the baby engrossed in making sand castles while her parents looked indulging at her efforts. Reminded me of my childhood…… the first time I saw the sea……. and this vast expanse of different looking mud (sand) and of course so much water……. water as far as the eye could see……. touching the sky and the sun and all those stars…….. millions of them!!! The place was Puri in Odisha. It was the first time I saw the sea or that much water. It was a revelation. I wouldn’t let go of dad’s hands and held on tight. Living among the hills….. with two rivers that dry up by winter……. witnessing so much water and all that noise of the waves was monumental. I have never forgotten that first. Also made my first sand castle  😀   I had taken a very long time to build that one also was very meticulous about it. It was a lopsided structure looking like a hill and I had taken a lot of pain to make a tunnel through it and decorating it shells that I had collected in the beach….. It also had a garden wall and a garden. Most of the time the whole structure crumbled down only to rebuild it all over again. Writing on the sand with my newly learnt vocab and drawing crazy stuff on the sand only to see all of it wash away by the waves.

I have often tried to recapture that innocence and built many castles over the years in different  beaches in different states and countries……. still that first castle that I had build in Puri remains in memory as my favorite. I can probably build better castles today but the innocence of the first one is just a memory today.