The first time my soles of my feet hit the soft, white sand at the beach, I think, "I'm home!" I love the feel of it underfoot, how it caresses my toes and warms my skin. I love how it gives way as I walk across it, making me slow down a little and breathe in the salt air. I love digging my feet down in it when I'm sitting under my umbrella watching the waves. I even like how it finds its way into everything from my shoes to my beach bag to the book that I'm reading. It's so comforting, and I always bring some home with me.
On my last trip to the beach, I spent many hours walking along the shore. I always look for shells when I walk, hoping to find the perfect specimens. I rarely do. How often have I rejected a shell that has a hole or a chip in it? I love the tiny versions of olives and cat's eyes and whelks. I love ones that are colorful and those without a nick or a scratch, that still shine even when they're not wet. Sometimes I'm lucky; usually I'm not.
Mostly I find common, ordinary shells, with broken pieces, worn from years of being tumbled by the waves, crashing on other shells, getting stepped on by beach walkers like me, dropped from the sky by the gulls looking for food. There are whole sections of these kinds of shells on the beach. They are hard to walk on. They poke and offend tender feet with their sharp points and breaks. Kirk tries to avoid them, but I like to stop and look down and see the beauty in the brokenness.
There is another level of shells that are simply tiny pieces on their way to becoming sand. They are mostly just a layer of colors. They don't hurt to walk on, and you can tell that they've been through the ocean mill for a long time.
As I walked this last trip, I got to know the rhythm of the tides and paid attention to the different layers of the beach. All these layers make up the beach. The cycle is never-ending, and those shells that are perfect now, will be sand one day. We always look for the perfect, the beautiful, the rare find that has no flaws. They are hard to come by. More often than not, we are, and are surrounded by, those that are broken, that hurt, that are tumbled by life's waves over and over. The ones we wish were whole, but who are beautiful in their own way. We encounter those who have been worn by life, tiny pieces of the original, but going with the flow, becoming that soft, warm sand that we all love to feel, finding their way into unexpected places of our lives, reminding us to slow down, relax, and breathe.
