December 2018

Back in 2009, my father made several references to my “Simpsons challenge” in
Through the Sandglass. Having found several tenuous connections to sand, I
cannot tell you how delighted I was, years later, to finally share this clip
with the Sandman:

Thankfully, my dad’s slightly obsessive arenophilia brought to light far more
engaging conversations about geology than most made-for-school film reels
could – I am not including the ever-frustrating “spot the fault line” game on
car trips/hikes by the way.

(My dad and me on Jebel Toubkal. 1995)

Recognizing a fault line, GoogleEarth quizzes, love of a good IPA, complaining
about scrums in rugby union - these are just a few things my father has left
me with and I know that his passions have reached beyond his immediate family.
This concept is beautifully illustrated in an extract from the final poem in
Michel Faber’s Undying: A Love Story :

If I could scan this planet

with X-rays that detect the presence

of your timely interventions,

I’m sure I’d find them

in places you would not expect.

You’re dead. I know. And it is not for me

to show you death is not the end.

But you left lucencies of grace

secreted in the world,

still glowing.

My father was meant to be the keynote speaker at “The Abundance and Scarcity
of Sand” symposium hosted by Atelier NL and MU as part of Dutch Design week in
2017, but died just prior to the event. I want to thank Lonny, Angelique, and
Denis for honouring his dedication to sand and keeping those lucencies
glowing. Below is the link to the symposium and his final talk that I
extracted from his dictaphone.

[http://www.ateliernl.com/lectures/the-abundance-and-scarcity-of- sand](http://www.ateliernl.com/lectures/the-
abundance-and-scarcity-of-sand)

I will never research and write about sand like my dad, but he has left with
me the habit of always carrying plastic bags in my pockets to collect and
catalogue sand on my travels. And his travels continue as my mother and I take
his sand (it is grain size that matters, not mineral content so some of his
ashes are sand) and scatter it on our travels. Next Estonia, then the Gobi –
Michael adventures on….

Originally published at: https://throughthesandglass.typepad.com/through_the_sandglass/2018/12/index.html