Driftwood Forts

Sunday Forts!

Driftwood Forts, NSP Meditations

The Fort Destroyer is no match for the fort fun army. The sheer joy of sweat and making art and shelter at the ocean’s edge! More forts go up in his lair, forts built by people passing through who build on their own and know nothing of the Destroyer’s misguided anarchism toward forts. Oh how he must feel when he sees more forts built the next day after his nocturnal destructions! I built two this Sunday morning as pelicans and gulls flew overhead. I even added some feathers and charcoal inscriptions.

Androsov’s Fort

Driftwood Forts, NSP Correspondents, Oregon Beaches

A fort appeared in the distance. The ball dog and I detoured off course from our beach romp to investigate. I’ll never pass up an opportunity to see a fort. Maybe I’ll find a third dildo inside a driftwood fort.

A few minutes later, the dog was lounging in a sturdy and roomy fort with his ball and I was marveling at something I’d never encountered in thousands of fort inspections. The builder had carved their name and a number on a beam and used charred wood from a old beach fire to blacken the words and numeral. It was simply and expertly done. It was so well done it looked like someone had used a router!

The words read BUILT BY ANDROSOV 61

Androsov! A Russian fort builder?! I presumed the 61 represented the year of Androsov’s birth. But I would never know for sure. I do love these fort mysteries. I also love imagining what Androsov the Russian Fort Master might do to the Fort Destroyer should he or she ever encounter that person in the act of destruction.

I sometimes name my forts, using charred wood or a pen that’s washed ashore. I’ve never signed my name to one. I applaud Androsov for making this magnificent fort and I actually liked having a name attached to one, especially a foreign sounding one. He surely knows the fort won’t last but he put his name on it anyway. His information gave me and others someone to thank. This fort can sleep three, host makeout and meditation sessions, facilitate a haiku festival or a spiritual overhaul much like having a car put up on its chassis.

Well done sir or madam. Build on Russian brother or sister.

5:42 AM Fort

Driftwood Forts, NSP Meditations, Oregon Beaches ,

They destroy at night. I create in the morning, 5:42 in the morning to be precise. My earliest fort of all time…

A beautiful sunrise over the mountains, purple, orange and white clouds in a dull blue sky, met me. I drank cheap coffee and marveled at my energy and spirit.

I pulled over into the wayside on my way to work, my construction gig, and started walking down the beach. A fort would form itself or not; it depended on what was there or not there; it depended on the fullness of my creative mind or the emptiness of my mind. I saw a massive root wad tilted at an unusual angle. Someone has built tiny cairns on it, and left behind offerings of shells and feathers. A long, thin, round piece of driftwood caught my eye. I retrieved it and leaned it against the root wad. I found two other spars and whipped up the beginnings of a fort or sculpture or whatever it would become today at the hands of others. Doubtless the creation would be destroyed tonight. This was Fort Destroyer territory. But while it stood it will have delighted hundreds of others, and inspired them to create, add, change, strengthen, adorn, collaborate. The Destroyer knows nothing of that.

The Fort Destroyer Continued…

Driftwood Forts, NSP Meditations, Oregon Beaches ,

I responded with two forts. Fort fairies built two others. I saw them all standing on Saturday morning. When I checked Sunday morning, they had all been destroyed. I noticed a fat motorcycle track leading up to each fort. Mad Max tire tracks. It’s illegal to drive on this beach. No way anyone would have done it during daytime. You’d easily be seen and busted.

The Fort Destroyer had ridden his motorcycle on the beach in darkness and annihilated the forts. He might have even rigged up kelp to help tear them down.

I create, he destroys. Others create, he destroys. A friend suggested I was helping him work through issues. I liked that notion! Destroying a fort as a therapy! Why not? Building them helped me work through issues. I really loathe the word issues in this context. It’s a zero word, like entitlement or appropriation or resonate or dappled or socialism.

The Fort Destroyer really did a number on one of my person favorites. He even took off with the cut log round I had positioned for a stool!

But he did me a favor. This fort had become too big, the entryway too small, the meditative space too tiny. I pulled the wreckage apart this morning and, at 6:30 am, built a new fort that could sleep a homeless family, and probably will tonight. They will be shielded from wind and possibly rain. They can make a fire inside and hear the ocean while the flames hiss and crackle.

I’m not going to stop creating forts, here or anywhere along the Oregon Coast. He can do what he wants. I’ll do what I want. Will creation triumph over destruction? Isn’t that the eternal question we all have to answer every day of our lives. Create!!!!

Fort Destroyer Response 2

Driftwood Forts, NSP Meditations, Oregon Beaches

I had pondered how I might next respond to the Fort Destroyer. I was on the verge of letting go, when a friend suggested I build about a dozen forts in the general area of the destruction, and leave it at that. No notes. No words. A silent, massive, peaceful counterattack of forts and sculptures and other forms of beach art that involved kelp, shells, rocks, feathers, and whatever other treasures the ocean offered. My friend suggested a creative all-nighter but I am more of a dawn’s early-light-kind of person.

A couple of days ago, I drove by the beach where the destruction occurred and to my great surprise and delight, a fort stood! Fort fairies abound!

They are always built. People can’t help themselves. Neither can the fairies. The forts always wash away.

Two days later, the lone fort still stood, and at 6:30 in the morning, with the beach shrouded in fog, I pulled over while driving to work and added some wood and decorative flourishes to that fort, and built another one a hundred years away.

It was the beginning or it was the end or it was nothing linear at all in my narrative with the Fort Destroyer.. Let us see where it goes. I know I enjoyed every second of building in the fog and cultivated good thoughts to use the rest of the day.

Response to Fort Protest

Driftwood Forts, NSP Meditations, Oregon Beaches ,

A while back, someone destroyed one of the forts I built and left the following note behind in my fort message box:

There’s enough

structures in the

world without you

also adding structures at

an undeveloped beach. I

enjoy undoing your work

every night.

At the time, I didn’t know how to respond, but mulled over the various possibilities:

Don’t respond.

Build another fort and see what happens.

Build a fort and stake it out, wait for him. Gather more intelligence.

Leave a message behind asking for a parley.

Leave an essay behind that shares my philosophy about fort building.

Leave a note behind saying he’s one in a million who hates my forts.

Leave a sentence behind asking why he’s so angry at a corral fort.

Leave an invitation behind asking for a longer explanation for his hostility toward the fort.

Leave him a screed that rips his wrongheadedness about forts.

Challenge to him some kind of duel.

Set up a booby trap.

A week or so ago, I built a new fort not far from where the destroyed once stood. I left behind a note (see graphic) inside a container.

I returned to the fort three days later and it had collapsed in a manner inconsistent with a collapse caused by winds or tides. (I know about these things.) I opened the container but couldn’t tell if the note had been read or not.

Now what? Do I continue to invite reflection and reconsideration? Do I give up? Do I put my fort energy elsewhere?

«‹ 4 5 6 7›»