Let Marie Be
Hurricane Marie didn't have to make a direct hit to remind us of something we seem to forget over and over again:
The Mother is powerful.
We keep treating beaches as though they are permanent fixtures. We build houses beside them, roads behind them, walls in front of them. When the ocean moves the sand, we truck more sand in. When waves reach our buildings, we build bigger walls.
Then we act surprised when the coastline changes.
I've watched this happen in Zipolite.
After a big storm, you can walk down to the beach and suddenly wonder where the beach went. Mini Grand Canyons appear.
The sand can disappear, leaving rocks and gravel where there was once a broad stretch of sand.
And then, sometimes, it comes back.
The ocean has been moving that sand all along.
I've seen something very similar here in British Columbia. Some of the murals I've painted are on old retaining walls — walls made from aging concrete and broken pieces of cement that were put there to hold the shore line.
After a storm, I sometimes go down and look.
It can be completely different.
Sand gone.
Rocks exposed.
Gravel everywhere.
The coastline has rearranged itself.
And farther along, I've watched enormous new walls being built to protect homes.
I understand why people do it. Nobody wants their home washed away.
But at some point we have to ask a bigger question:
How long can we keep trying to force the Mother into staying exactly where we want her to stay?
In Zipolite, there was also an effort to restore mangroves — nature's own coastal protection system. But development continued, and the project eventually ended.
That's the part that troubles me.
We know mangroves can help protect coastlines.
We know vegetation holds sediment.
We know wetlands absorb water.
We know beaches naturally move.
We know storms can completely reshape a coastline.
And yet we keep building closer, harder and bigger.
Then we spend millions trying to make the ocean behave.
Maybe Hurricane Marie can be a lesson.
Not because she was the biggest storm.
Not because she destroyed everything.
But because she reminds us that the Mother doesn't need to make a direct hit to make her point.
Sometimes she only has to move the sand.
Sometimes she exposes the rocks beneath our beautiful beaches.
Sometimes she sends waves against the walls we've built.
And sometimes she quietly puts the beach back together again.
Maybe the warning isn't that nature is out to get us.
Maybe the warning is much simpler:
Listen.
The Mother is telling us where the water wants to go.
We just keep building there.
Five things I keep wondering
- How much money are we spending trying to hold coastlines in place that naturally want to move?
- What could happen if we worked with natural systems instead of constantly fighting them?
- What happens when the walls protecting one property push erosion toward another?
- Could restoring mangroves, wetlands and natural shorelines sometimes do more than another concrete wall?
- How many warnings does the Mother have to give us before we finally listen?
The North Wind boasted of great strength. The Sun argued that there was great power in gentleness.
