30 Days of Thanks: Erosion

Jelena...unaware of my camera.  :)  Click!

 After the first full day of our trip, Jelena and I went down to the cove at sunset as the tide was low.  The waves started to come in gently, and I scooped up the purple shell of a sea urchin.  I am not real big on collecting anything beyond photographs, but I thought it might be a pretty thing to leave behind at Casa Meiodia.  The next day at the cove, I snagged a worn shell of a different sort.  I set it on Jelena's towel to dry.  She, in turn, gave it to our hostess, Irene.

The cove by day.

Irene and I were drinking coffee the next morning, and she thanked me for spotting the shell, because she is working on a project she calls "Erosion Art."  She is collecting sea shells that have been shaped in different ways by time and nature--sand, waves, salt, sun, wind.  She has a glass vase that holds the pieces neatly arranged, so we started looking through them.  Isn't that a really cool project?  Those are the broken shells everyone throws back, because they aren't deemed the prettiest.  They are just fragments, while so many of us only want the most complete, most perfect ones.  Her collection is splendid, I was honored that she shared it with me.

The scientific concept of erosion tends to have an "over time" connotation, as well as a negative one.  I held the shell I had picked up--this time, looking with new eyes.  It was easy to see where the sand had settled inside it, pitting and wearing away the inner nacre (or possibly porcelain, too hard to tell now.)  Time and force had worn its edges and diminished its color, leaving only small markings of purple.  This shell, ground down and changed, is all that remains of the mollusk it used to house--of the life it used to protect.

Over the past few days, I have given erosion much thought. 

What erodes us?  What erodes you, me, anyone?  Is erosion always bad?

What am I thankful for today?  The list I made earlier in the week, the one detailing what grinds down my inner nature.  What wears me away, the forces which change me.  It was kind of an ugly list to be frank.  A few items I would rather have glossed over in an attempt to pretend they didn't really belong.  I encourage you to do the same, for what erodes me isn't necessarily what erodes you at all.  And it's important to know the difference.

Maybe more important is the quest to determine what elements put us back together.  What makes us whole.  And how to tip this very precious balance in our favor.


When you are gone, a shell will remain.  Your mark on the world will persist.  Possibly to be the inspiration in the hand of another.  How much of that shell any of us can choose to build in beauty, and how much may be shaped by the relentlessness of nature, will likely remain a mystery.