Life Tides and Detritus
One of my favorite things to do is to gather sea glass, sea shells and rocks along the shore. My collection spans nearly 50 years of gathered detritus that has washed up on beaches around the world. My first memory of the ocean is New Hampshire’s rocky coastline and my family’s annual pilgrimage to Hampton Beach. I’ve long since forgotten what I gathered there, but I know that I was hooked on being a shell and sea glass gatherer even then. In subsequent years, I’ve gathered along the shores of Cape Cod, including Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard, California, Long Island, Aruba and assorted Caribbean Islands, and of late, Connecticut.
There’s something hypnotizing about gathering what the ocean gives up. Sea glass is my favorite, but I’ve a very healthy shell collection that testifies to my love of the seashell, its whorls and swirls, it’s hidden depths of pale pinks and yellows, that smooth whirligig of shell and pearl. The joy of finding that perfect conch or whelk, the rare fragment of red or blue sea glass — it is a joyful thing, calming, soothing. The thrill of the hunt in gathering seashells and sea glass is tame, to be sure; but it is satisfying nonetheless.
As I ponder this thing I do on my last day in Aruba, I wonder at what the sea gives up, where these offerings come from, how far they’ve traveled. What some consider detritus on beaches is treasure to me. What is offered up from the sea becomes a special memory, a precious token of times spent in sunshine, sea breezes and leisure moments of contemplation.
The best time to gather seashells and seaglass is at low tide - and especially after a big storm. Winds and strong surf churn up deep and far-off ocean beds, and the surf comes crashing-in with forgotten treasures to sandy beaches as if in offering for the turbulent storm-tide that came before. The array of shells and glass is best then, and those of us who gather treasure this exuberance of the sea’s generosity and its gifts. We endure the storm to gather the best of what the sea has to offer. Much like our lives - as the difficult, crazy, crashing times of our difficulties and disappointments pull up the forgotten bits and pieces of our hearts and soul, sometimes whole, sometimes broken - but nonetheless fragments of us, strewn about in disarray on the beach of our lives.
I’ve known turbulent times, times when my life-tides have been higher and lower than normal because of storms, because of life itself. What are the things I give up - these treasures and tokens of what once was?
I’ve learned that what seems like a broken shell, or a jagged piece of sea glass to me is precious, whether object or thought. Just as the sea-tides provide the momentum of washing up bits and pieces from the deep sea, just so the tides of my life will cause me to dredge deep within to see what needs purging from the depth of my soul, what needs tossing up and out from long held beliefs, deeply buried hurts; what might be gathered in as a precious piece of my life’s detritus by another.
The tides of my life, the ebb and flow of the sea change that is my journey, gives me ample opportunity to examine what is offered up for me to cast away, to sort through those memories and impressions that have now become so much detritus. I am given a renewed chance to start new, afresh in wonder as I consider what has been tossed up and out, and what I must gather in. And what is gathered up, whether by me or another, gives me a clean, white expanse of sand, of renewed beauty, of an opportunity to begin anew.
There is age-old wisdom in the gathering in of shells and glass. And I am grateful that I have recognized this love of gathering in for what it is: God’s handprint in my life, His stamp of majesty and beauty left on a beach for me to find, to treasure, to enjoy. It is His voice, His creation. His blessing that all is well, even in the bits and pieces left behind.
