Where the Dock Begins

***

The junction where the sea and shore merge.

The median of old and new.

The equilibrium between past and present.

This is where the dock begins. Its lingering essence still holds a presence, the seed of memories and four generations. The dock once strong, now nearly gone, is the very spirit of my youth.

This summer I sat on that 52-year-old dock. Only a few feet of a once-grand pier remain. As the years deliberately take away our youth, leaving crevices and lines externally and internally, so too this dock gave way to time, weather and the sea. Its tenacious and obstinate strength, the same strength with which it was built, crumbled and bowed to the persistence of nature. A 9-foot wide by 5-foot deep persevering remnant endured, lingered, still connected with a fingerlike fragment that seems to say “No, I will not yet surrender. I dare you to try.” It is no longer the deep, 20 or so-foot long, sturdy frame it once was, but only an old sigh of its past strength.

Over the years our infrequent visits to Croatia left the dock to itself and each year a little more was consumed by the sea. I watched it wither and wane with time. First the sea took away its smooth surface. Then it carved out its foundation. Once the weakness was present in its core, it was fragile enough for the sea to start reclaiming it, inch by inch. The suffocating, constant caresses of the sea left only a fragment of what the dock once was. With each season, the sea repossessed more of what it had once loaned. And the dock was now like Shel Silverstein’s The Giving Tree. It gave to us until it had little left to give.

My father built this dock with his own hands more than 50 years ago. It was the first piece of the beach house he built. It was the dock that helped build many of the houses that surrounded us in the years to come… There was no electricity, no running water and not many homes other than the ones in the village. Since the coastline was so rough, his first task was to build a dock to bring in materials by boat. He hired a couple workers to do the job. But once they were hired and present for the first day of labor, they informed him that they did not swim. Given that the dock was to be built both under and above the sea, the ability to swim was a necessity. So, my father took on the task and built the concrete dock alone.

Although, I will admit I am biased, my father’s dock was special, unrivaled by any other. Years ago, it adhered to the shore and fearlessly extended into the wild Adriatic Sea. It hovered above the sea and reached into its depths. It bridged the land and sea and was large enough to anchor a private yacht, when a dear friend came for a visit. Yet it was gentle too. Its arms held steps for us to leisurely inch in, while its head was where our leap into the sea began. On this dock my father first threw me into the Adriatic, and I became a part of her, just as my daughters did once they were introduced to her. On this dock, I played with my childhood friends. There, I dreamed and there I dreamed of. I fell in love with the sea, learned to swim, row and pilot a boat, there. And it is there that my heart always leads, where my soul feels most free. When the cold sea touches my skin, it’s as if I am spiritually and physically connected to every part of our world. The currents carry ancient and future memories through my pores, and I feel alive, peaceful, eternal. 

This dock gave life to the sea grass, crabs, sea horses, fish, starfish and all categories of sea creatures that clung to it for protection. It gave me summers of sunbathing and reading while I listened to the waves gently flirt with the dock’s perimeter. It gave me evenings under the stars, the night air penetrated by giggling and laughter as my friends, siblings and I would tell stories that would turn into memories that I treasure to this day.

This year, I sat on the small enduring portion that stood the test of time. I looked ahead at the rocks, boulders and concrete that had succumbed and given its life back to the sea. Sea urchins dotted the now fallen rocks. The dock remained in its transformed figure, but the gift it gave to me was the glimpse of its formation. The rocks were those my father had carefully laid together more than 50 years ago. From boulders to crushed stone that once lined the coast before man brushed against it; its last touch was by my father’s 29-year-old hands. Some rocks were crushed and still held together with concrete, others beneath it larger, transformed to perfect curvature and smoothness by decades of the sea’s caress, before they were harvested for this dock. Some stood bright, untouched by no more than the sun and an occasional high tide. Some were heavy stones, still penetrated with the home of the shells that lived within them. Others porous and light, seemingly not belonging to the roommates with whom they shared life as the building blocks of a dock. Then there were those that held permanent remembrances of fossilized sea worms, snails, all the history of a world we would never have seen were it not for the transformation of this dock. My eyes fell upon the past—the sea’s past, the rock’s past, my father’s past. Each rock once touched by his young hands, hidden, covered, transformed, to once again be reborn for my eyes to see.

The remnants of the dock show their former lives. My fingers fit perfectly inside some of them that were home to prstaci, finger-shaped shells which, before being protected, were a delicacy of Dalmatian cuisine. I touch their past, my father’s past, this dock’s past, which the sea uncovered, leaving only… a finger. Perhaps, a reminder that from whence it once came it shall return.

Perfect in its imperfection, it slowly returns to its natural home, the sea taking what was once hers.

This summer we enjoyed weeks of sunbathing, talking, laughing and memory-making days on the fragment that the sea has graciously left behind for us. Not once did I wish for the old, sturdy dock; this dock held all of the memories, the past and the future, and I loved, just as the sea intends me to love: raw, natural, kissed by the past, aging towards the future in imperfect symmetry.

My aunt once told me, “A man with no memories is a poor man.” Fortunately, I am a very wealthy woman.

I sat on its shore, watching the sea change colors, shimmer, get angry, return to peaceful. In all its living emotion and commotion below, it remained calm above, leaving me with a lesson in patience, a hope for the future, and a realization that imperfection can truly be beautiful perfection.

And the dock? In the little that was left, I felt all that there was.

Articles and Photos By: Ivana Segvic-Boudreaux