Today began sunny and slightly cool, with perfectly blue skies and light airy clouds floating above like casual brushstrokes from beyond. We’ve been hearing the first whispers of autumn the last two days here by the ocean and as we rapidly approach September, my favorite month here at the beach, it’s yet another reminder that change (this time, for seasons) stops for no one, and it is the only constant we have in life.
My beach run this morning had me marveling at the sky above and also at the shells below. The more I looked down, it reminded me many years ago of when I had read Anne Lindbergh’s book, Gift From The Sea, a compilation of meditations from a mother of five during a solitary vacation in Florida as she reflected upon concepts like youth and age, love and marriage, peace, solitude, and contentment. I loved this book so very much and it is a must-read for any woman of any age. There are lessons for us all wrapped up inside each page. She goes out for her morning walk, and in each seashell she sees, she finds meaning for each stage of a woman’s life based on the shape and style.
This morning, I found two oyster shells, the shell she assigned to the middle years of marriage. Imperfectly shaped, it is less beautiful than functional. Clinging hard to the rock of it’s birth, we can watch, once it’s job is finished, as it’s shape has shifted and bent based on the rock it has clung to for so long.
These shells today that I saw, to me, were stunning. Almost like opposite mirror images of one another. One revealed many, many consecutively thinning outer layers, revealing a pearly, iridescent inner self, luminous, bright, light. Curved, inverted, it’s inside is thrust outward to be seen by all. I’ve never seen an oyster shell quite like this one. The other, much thicker in size, seemed much heartier and heavier and discloses a dark gunmetal gray center. Still sparkly, but hard. Like it had seen the depths…and made it. Both had a deep purple center, a reminder of the oyster it had borne within, a bold marking of its primary purpose in shellfish life.
It made me think of myself and my friends in this phase of life. How different we all are and how all of us cling to our rock…our spouse or significant other, our core values, our faith, our job, our…whatever…. and right now, in the shifting landscape we find ourselves in as we age, and have friends who fight cancer, whose parents fall ill, who are making major decisions about citizenship and where to call home and where to vacation and how to educate our children and what lengths to go to to protect our families from COVID…. this isn’t the pretty part. This is the rough, rocky, jagged, tough spot.
I saw a bit of myself in the light, insides-on-the-outside shell… I give so much of my heart to those around me and I feel all the feels, emitting genuine contentment on most days… but I also saw in it a hint of warning. As lovely a trait as that may be, after so much unlayering and revealing, the shell has little strength for itself and is vulnerable and at risk of breaking. The dark shell, conversely, looks like it could outlast a sonic boom and while it seems to me that it could use a little sunshine, it is walled, curving inward, protected and safe.
Sigh.
There is no one right way to live. It’s okay to be generous or cautious with your heart. Either way, hurt can still find us, sometimes when you least expect it. I think my great lesson in this most recent season of pandemic weirdness is the necessity of self-care. Of self-love. Of self-nurturing. Of self-focus. Not in a self-absorbed or selfish way, but rather to preserve the enormous gifts we all possess. To tend to the gardens of our spirit. To intentionally select the seeds of skill sets and talents that we desire, and to plant them in the right environment. Water them. Fertilize them. Shine sunlight upon them. Marvel at them. Be proud of them. Celebrate and share them with others. It’s not a frivolous thing to do….it is a critical thing to do…. for the protection of ourselves and also to aid in the construction of a world full of people who are completely and uniquely themselves, that can then turn around and create and raise humans who can also be uniquely themselves. And so on.
Life is awkward and hard and also downright glorious.
But I am thankful for this moment of reflection today, brought to you by two oyster shells sat side by side at the ocean’s edge. ?
Keep finding these moments. They are lucky to found by someone like you who cares for them so carefully and provides them with spotlight to shine:) Our shared moments are forever more colorful and meaningful when you are around!
Aww, babe, thank you ?. So nice of you to say. ✨