To Shell With It
While sitting in my car and overlooking the beach last winter, I remember thinking how peaceful and pleasant it is to walk the beach at dusk in the summer. Especially at the end of a not-too-hot day, with just nominal wind so the waves lap slowly and lazily up and down the beach. The way a thin layer of water foams and swirls around your feet and pulls back, sinking your feet deeper into the sand. There's something about that experience that makes ordinary shells and stones look somehow special and compels us to pick up a few new ones everytime we walk the beach. I still have a perfect spherical white pebble I found while walking Wades Beach in high school. It looks like a big pearl. It's just a stone, but it's one of my favorite little treasures.
I began to think, always a dangerous activity, about how Shelter Island recycles everything - and long before it was in style. Then I began to think about all the jars of shells and pebbles I have as decorations around the house. And I began to think of all the houses on the Island with jars of shells and pebbles. There's probably enough sand, pebbles and shells in jars all over the Island to build a whole new beach! Maybe it's time for us to recycle some of these shells and pebbles back onto the beach instead of putting them in the back of the closet while we get a new jar of shells this year. I have noticed, over time, that the beach seems to have fewer and fewer nice shells to take home. At first I thought I was imagining it, but now I'm thinking it's because we've all been slowly clearing the beaches of the pretty shells and pebbles and leaving the broken shells and ugly pebbles, cause there doesn't seem to be any shortage of them. So this year, I think I'll recycle, or reshell, the beaches I love with things I have borrowed from them over the years.
Jean: "Ahhhh, Sally, how nice. The beach looks better already. How many jars is that, six?"
Me: "Seven. I don't know which shells came from which beaches though, I may have mixed the Wades Beach shells with the Louis' Beach shells or the Shell Beach shells. But I don't think it matters, do you?"
Jean: "No, I don't think it matters as long as they're from local beaches, but what about this batch you left over here?"
Me: "Those are shells from Tamalpais Beach in California, I had four jars from there. I thought it would be nice, as long as I was in a reshelling mood, to add a few exotics...."
Jean: "I think the reshelling idea is great, but I think you should only reshell local shells, to maintain shell consistency, you know, Shelter Island has standards. Lots of areas limit your paint color choices when you paint your house and such, I'm just not sure that you should..... WAIT! What's that over there? Why is the sand pink and purple? And why is it glittering?"
Me; "Glitter? What glitter? It's the sun playing tricks with your eyes."
Jean: "I don't believe it. Where did you get pink and purple sand filled with glitter?"
Me: "The Honolulu Hilton gift shop. It was a tourist trap, but the shells were so pretty in the colored sand, I just had to buy a few jars. I think the sparkles give the beige sand a little zip."
Jean: "What about the shells? None of these shells are local! The spiny conch shells look awful here, and the little shark jaws have got to go - you'll scare people."
Me: "I thought it would be nice for the kids to find unusual things on the beach."
Jean: "No mother wants her toddler to reappear at the beach blanket with shark jars."
Me: "I see your point."
Jean: "Okay, let's just pick up the little jaws and spiny shells that kids can step on. You had such a good idea, and as always, you just have to go over the top. Why are you looking down? What else have you done to our pristine beaches? 'fess up!"
Me: "Well, the glitter looks so pretty mixed into the sand, and I just thought..."
Jean: "I saw empty plastic bags labeled, "Sequins", in your car, tell me you didn't...."
Me: "No, no, there's no sequins here."
Jean: "Thank God."
Me: "I spread them all over Wades Beach yesterday. The sand looks gorgeous now, you should see it before you judge me."
Jean: "Get in your car! And wait there while I find a piece of driftwood to beat you to death with."
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