Today, unusually, I came to Halibut Point State Park for pleasure. I am here as the sun begins to think about setting. It beats strong and hot on the rocks and my skin. At the end of August in Rockport, the chill is usually much more assertive.
On a tranquil ocean, out where the lobster pots & their buoys wait patiently, the water darkens to a speckled, shimmering, steely navy. Its weight and power are frightening, but they lie dormant – those deep forces which plagued Odysseus and sailors past. All I see of this power as I sit here, passive in the scene, is the relentless assault of strong waves on the rocks, themselves strong, defiant. Waves reduce to frothy white salt; glimmering in the sunset, they meld with the rocks. If I watch closely, for half a breath these two forces merge into one. Land is sea, sea is land. They are indistinguishable in their wild battle.
Less noticeable battles rage everywhere like this, all across the landscape. Gypsy moths lay siege to the trees, wind-driven rain and salt destroy wood and concrete. Each battle of the wills of nature is evidence of the changing ecosystem which constitutes our sphere of knowledge.
My job site, the park’s visitor center, stands back from this pool of surging energy. The concrete tower, now with its dark, vacant slots, seeks more to preserve the battle below it than to infringe upon it. The wind and salt fling themselves against it, the sun beats down steadily despite the cool ocean air, and yet it stands still, a silent sentinel, strong as the rocks, changing slowly. It melds, over the years, into one being with the shoreline. It becomes another rock, worn away and shaped by the forces of nature at the same rate as the chunks of granite which make up the shoreline themselves. At least, we can only perceive that much of its lifetime in ours.
Either way, this piece of public land is left to itself in a way which encourages it to be only as it wants to be. The humans who scrabble in the rocks, pursuing idle leisure in the apex of this energy-filled zone, are nothing more than mammals bound by instinct and desire. This will still be here, long after we have forgotten it from our wandering minds. I am captivated by this place, and inordinately pleased to act as preserver here. I do not care whether my design sensibility has been stamped upon this place. It simply does not matter.
We cannot mimic nature, and so the most we can do is give to our intervention the most appropriate aesthetic aspect possible, then stand back and allow it to become what it will be, like we do for the park itself. The battleship grey we chose for the tower speaks in a strong, steady voice to the ocean at its face, and at its back to the flat, cloud-filled expanse of overcast sky. It must be enough. This energy of this place could not possibly belong to us, therefore we must not change it. We must simply, by enjoyment, investment and collective memory, give it the strongest reverence in our hearts.
Sunset has come, and paints such startling pictures on the sky. Streaks of pink radiate from behind a bank of clouds, past a fluorescent, pencil thin edge. All watching with me stand at attention, watching the warmth disappear from view. Then the spell is broken, and the vulnerable retreat quickly. As the dusk deepens, all of nature proceeds, resolute.
