Writing on the Sand

By Abe V Rotor

Puerto Sunken Pier, San Ildefonso, Ilocos Sur

Without map and you are in the field, the best thing you can do is get a stick and draw on the ground.

That’s how village folks plan out irrigation schedules, show the location of a remote sitio (purok), design a makeshift hut – or simply to while away time in thoughts and ideas.

Christ did write on the ground, and on one occasion made two curves facing each other to look like fish - one end its tail, the other its head. It is the simplest yet most symbolic drawing I’ve ever seen. Before he uttered these famous words, “He who has no sin, casts the first stone,” He wrote something on the ground which we can only assume to be a mark of supreme meditation.

Writing hones the senses into deeper thinking and analysis, catalyzes understanding and comprehension, and keeps memory longer. Scientists say that we learn but a measly one-fourth of the lesson by just listening to it alone, but with the use of pen and paper, learning can be enhanced twice, if not thrice.

“Put it in writing,” goes a saying. Yes, even only on the ground as our old folks have always done.

By the way, who has not experienced “writing love letters in the sand?” Listen to balladeer, Pat Boone, sing the song of the same title, and you know what I mean.

Or write your problems where the sea rises and ebbs, and watch how the waves erase them away. This is therapeutic, try it.

Love Letters In The Sand

On a day like today
We passed the time away
Writing love letters in the sand

How you laughed when I cried
Each time I saw the tide
Take our love letters from the sand

CHORUS
You made a vow that you would ever be true
But somehow that vow meant nothing to you

Now my broken heart aches
With every wave that breaks
Over love letters in the sand

Now my broken heart aches
With every wave that breaks
Over love letters in the sand

Pat Boone
Words by Nick and Charles Kenny and Music by J. Fred Coots
The # 11 song in the 1955-1959 rock era. It was was # 1 for 7 weeks in 1957; and also a # 6 hit in 1931 for Ted Black