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GUARDIAN OF THE DUNES by Sara Drought Nebel	Rich and I are in our off season paradise on Cape Cod. Determined to witness the sunrise, we set our alarm for half hour before sunrise. When it rings, I look out the window and see just light blue silhouetting beach houses to the east. We scramble for coffee, grab our phones and still rubbing our eyes, scurry out the door for the short mile road trip to the ocean beach. There are no other cars in the parking lot. We are alone, or so we think. A yellow glow is more dramatic now over the water as we walk into the beach. It's pretty cold, October, and our hot coffees feel so good in our hands. The high dunes are just beginning to show the light of dawn on their rustic faces. We cannot see yet exactly where the sun will rise. Sipping our coffees we are enjoying the majesty and quiet. Gulls and soft waves on the vast blue, surprisingly calm flats with artful patterns in the sand of a receding tide. We start walking southeast, and behind us, where we came in, a woman with a hooded cape walks in and goes straight to a driftwood stump and stands next to it, looking east.
We keep walking in, looking up and down at random treasures from the sea. Looking up at the horizon for the sun. We can now see an orange glow in a place on it and both point excitedly, taking pictures. Another person walks into the entrance. We are pretty far in now but we can see it is a man with a big piece of wood. He leaves it and starts to walk down the beach along the water.To the south we spot a structure and curiously start walking toward it. When we get close enough we can see that it is made mostly of driftwood. Dug into the sand, about 5 feet high and 10 feet wide, with a place to sit in the middle. We get to it and turn around to see the man walking toward us now. He is weathered, tan and older but muscular.


We are a little nervous in this isolated place. He approaches us directly and says "Do you like it?" We answer "Yes, it's beautiful." He says "I made it." and smiles. Lines on his face frame his big grin. We are speechless as we really look carefully at this huge puzzle of driftwood, shells, rocks, grasses and all kinds of natural surprises carefully and purposefully weaved into it. "I have been working on this for 5 years now." He says his name is Drew. He says he began making these (there are more of them) as barriers against the rising waters and storms eroding the beaches and dunes he loves. He is the dune whisperer. Guardian of the dunes.

Drew is not from here but he has lived here for a long time. He once lived in a city with a demanding job, but this is the life he was meant to live, he tells us. A simple job at a restaurant and caring for this place. He is very concerned about climate change and new construction by wealthy private land owners. He worries that people who are visiting will take things out of his sculptures. He tells us that he has seen people do this and he cannot stop them. We promise that we won't take anything, but ask if we find something to add, can we add to it? He smiles and says yes. He has a mesh bag with him for garbage collecting. Another thing that saddens him, is that people leave plastics and garbage. He longs for these places to be honored and cared for and left in their natural state. We don't want him to leave. We want to hear more about this sculpture and his interesting life, but he has to go. He will be walking several miles more circling back around, through the scrub pine path, back to the entrance. We watch him walk away, bending over to pick up things, checking on standing sticks and rock cairns, sometimes just standing still facing the rising sun over the ocean. As he gets smaller in the distance, we start to walk back and find a ghost crab in the sand, bleached white by the sun. We take it back to add it to the sculpture and love that we are a part of it now.
The sun is now lighting up the whole beach orange and the dunes look like a natural Mount Rushmore in the rising sun, beach grasses swaying. As we get to the entrance the woman in the hooded cape is walking out just ahead of us. She turns and smiles and walks on. She slowly walks through the middle of the big empty parking lot. We look at each other, surprised that there are still no other cars there but ours. Artist/writer Sara Drought Nebel lives in Madison, CT Find her paintings on FB and Instagram. Find her stories in Ink Magazine. Email: saradnebel@gmail.com to inquire about her New England celestial calendars and cards featuring her paintings and poetry.