Washing in the undertow of the rising tide, shining with salted water, and smoothed by colliding, beach rocks beckon examination. 

Each celebrates its color, shape, and distinguishing imperfections. An idiosyncratic sampling of the planet fragmented to rocks, smoothed to stones, rounded to pebbles, reduced to sand, ground to dust, and – finally –  blown to thin air.

Cold to the touch, they shimmer when held – sea water draining through fingers turning them this way and that, feeling the smoothed edges, the weight of treasure found. An artifact to be taken home.

But when they do find their way inland whether in buckets, pockets or by hand; something changes. No longer tumbled against their kind, now separated from their original work of erosion, they are at risk. 

Some reimagine themselves to do the work of memory: sitting comfortably on a silver tray atop a wooden bureau, a morning reminder of the summer vacation faded by the changing season. Some are carried for comfort, safely nestled into pockets and at the ready for a reaching hand. Some find themselves reunited with others in gardens edged by sand and peppered with shells.  It is the ones cast aside, forgotten in buckets, that lose their luster coated with the dust of apathy – dislodged from their work they begin to vanish. Once part of the great effort of erosion – the shaping of our planet – now removed by myopic fingers and left carelessly behind – wondering: 

Why?

Where we live matters. Finding a home that releases talent and demands creativity opens possibilities for directed flight grounded by intent – work that matters. Over time our world becomes storied by experiences. The tree where our children built a fort – now grown over. The house on the hill where our grandmother took us to visit with her friend. The beach where we first noticed the endless stretching of the horizon. The street sign now leaning where a friend – now gone – once lived. Belonging does something for us. Lets our light shine, grounds us to lean in with confidence, to feel safely rooted. Things must dig in deep to survive the reckless trampling of strangers.

Unable to move, beach rocks work to reshape the landscape by giving themselves to the rising and falling tides. Unable to grow, they change through their resistance to water and wind. Unable to speak, they give voice to the final gasp of each wave’s retreating undertow.  Unable to feel, they offer themselves to be held dripping with color and compressed by weight that when clasped feels solid – like holding a piece of everything that has ever been. 

We too must find our way. Regardless of circumstances and unhindered by what we cannot control – we must lean into the present, discover work that needs doing – uncover the reason we have arrived in a certain place at a certain time. 

Stop wondering why – no answer will matter. We must move through the resistance; grow under the weight; speak into the silence; feel everything deeply conflicted: good against bad, wonder inside horror, joy coupled with sadness.

Each morning the beach offers a new chapter written in isolation under a night sky lit by the reflected light of a barren moon. For those of us fortunate enough to live alongside her, the waves are a reminder of the need to keep working – aware that each day is an opportunity to try again – even after we have been left behind.