A Name for This

It first came to me a long time ago, on one of the many mornings and evenings that I spend at my beach refuge here on Aquidneck Island. My refuge consists of a few square meters of craggy land at a protected end of Sachuest Beach, where the rocks pile into each other and offer a place to sit, to watch the surf reach and pull, to hear the gulls call, to count the newly hatched piping plovers in late spring. It’s a humble amphitheater and a grand example of nature's architecture. Mostly it’s just a place to be. At first I thought of it simply as the beach, or the rocks, or out at Sachuest. Sachuest is a Narragansett word that describes a small hill or piece of land that juts out on the horizon, and Sachuest Point defines the end of the peninsula that led to the formation of my refuge. So I call it this until I find the proper name that tells what it really is. Because it’s more than part of a peninsula, much more than a beach, so much more than a tumble of rocks and a skyful of birds and the foaming tide, and far, far more than the sum of its parts. It’s sand, and more. It’s the rocks, and more. It’s the surf, the salt air and spray, the invisible undertow, the deep primal hum that tells the story of all the elements that vibrate and come to collide here in this place. I can call it Sachuest Point so that you’ll find it on a map. I can list its coordinates and describe its geology and wealth of rocks and minerals. But these are only markers for something that has yet to be honored and named. Named for the spirit of the thing. For its soul. Because there is a name for this.