The Purpose-Driven Holiday

Welcome to this little old web site where no facts are checked and no upholstery is stained! My name is Anne, with a capital "A."

I grew up in the mountains. I loved the mountains. I will always love the mountains. , Heck, pick a verb tense, and I will love the mountains in that, too.

When I lived in the mountains, I went hiking all the time. There was never much purpose to the hiking. I'd look at the view, or climb through the wreckage of old log homes that had fallen down, or take a dip in the crick. But it was sort of a rambling, ambling kind of thing -- mostly. Oh yeah, when I was young and stupid I did some ridiculous rock-climbing. But generally speaking, I didn't head out for a day in the mountains with the idea of coming home with stuff.

Now I'm trying to bond with the beach, and let me just say that the seashore is very different from the mountains. Maybe you have noticed.

First of all, a hike along the surf line ... well, maybe it works for some people, but I can't stick it at any price. It all looks the same to me! Not that it isn't pretty, but for the love of fruit flies, you can walk five miles, and basically it's waves breaking on the sand, seagulls, and maybe a few little wading birds. The cute kind.

So I find myself going to the beach with the purpose of collecting sea glass. Seems like I have to do something at the beach ... either swim or beach-comb. And the only thing at the beach that compels me to lean over and pick it up is sea glass. Shells don't do it for me. I've got rocks from the mountains that have shell imprints in them, and those puppies are millions of years old. Last week's clam is a yawner. Every little pebble at the beach is beautiful. How could anyone ever collect the best ones? So I go for the glass.

Sunday was a beautiful day with a low tide, after a Nor'Easter. These are good conditions for collecting sea glass. So I went, got to the shore at super low tide, and was therefore able to comb some areas that have been inaccessible since Sandy. At least inaccessible to me. The hard core glass-hoarders, you couldn't keep them off those beaches with artillery.

Long story short, I was looking for larger chunks of sea glass, figuring that angry King Triton had flung some up in the storm. And darned if I didn't find a chunk that has a capital "A" on it!

So here's how the beach works for me. I scour the sand for glass, then I gaze out at the water and think, "Ah, that's pretty!" Then I repeat that for a few hours, about as long as I would have hiked back in the day. I say hello to whoever is around, pet whatever dogs are running about, and watch the shore birds. (This time I saw a flock of brant. I don't think I've ever seen brant before. I had to look them up in the bird encyclopedia.)

I always get the nagging feeling that, if I'd grown up along the shoreline, I'd need no purpose for my ramblings there. But I'll never know about that.

I came home with a bag of sea glass. I rinsed it off and put it in jars. And there it sits.

Except for the piece with my initial on it. I took that to work. I put it on my desk. I made a vow that I would keep it on the desk until the day I'm able to walk out of there for good. And then I will fling that piece of sea glass back to King Triton.

It's likely to be a long time before that happens. Hope my flinging arm still has some pep when that day comes.

In the meantime, here I sit with two jars of sea glass, small pieces and medium pieces. What happens when the jars are filled? Do I stop going to the beach?

Does anyone out there want an envelope of sea glass? Email me, luvbuzzards at yahoo dot com. Send me your address. Give me a purpose-driven holiday.