Strange that I would think about Mt. Ararat when I'm at a Southern California beach on a beautiful Sunday afternoon in August. But there I was, watching my wife burying her feet in a pile of beige granules as she sat on the warm sands of a secluded cove just south of downtown Laguna Beach - and imagining the sand in the shape of my beloved, holy mountain thousands of miles away.
As silly as it may sound, the idea made me want to see the mountains, so I quickly talked my wife into allowing me to modify the mound she was burying her feet in to resemble Masis (the big mountain) and to add a second, smaller "mountain" to it's left that would resemble Sis, and gained her approval and assistance.
We sculpted and then re-sculpted, and tried to get it as close as possible to the images of Ararat that we had saved in our memories. First Sis wasn't upside-down-cone shaped enough, then the lump on the East side of Masis wasn't prominent enough, etc. Finally we smoothed them as close as we could to the real thing and wrote "Ararat" on the front. We were able to snap a few quick photo's of it with a camera phone before the rising tide behind us finally claimed our fleeting moment of pride and longing. Ararat's sands were gone, but her memory continues...
