who will you find in the sea?

maggie and millie and molly and may
went down to the beach (to play one day)

and maggie discovered a shell that sang
so sweetly she couldn't remember her troubles, and

millie befriended a stranded star
who's rays five languid fingers were;

and molly was chased by a horrible thing
which raced sideways while blowing bubbles; and

may came home with a smooth round stone
as small as a world and as large as alone.

for whatever we lose (like a you or a me)
it's always ourselves we find in the sea.

- e.e. cummings

this is the creation that came from the beads by mika and the sand dollar charm by erin... i know my usual is chunky & the original plan was to have a lot of shiny silver... however, after finding out that mika hand sands each bead, i felt that it was a disservice to hide all of that surface area... and the flat sides of the discs are more like the sea glass that one finds anyway... erin's charm is so highly detailed that the same applied... keep it simple, natural, random...

so i began to think of the tide line left on the beach when the water retreats after a storm... piles of broken reeds, sea weed, skate pods, sand dollars, sea stars, all sorts of shells &, if you are lucky, sea glass... sea glass in varying shapes and sizes but having a certain color range - brown, blue, green, and clear... in thinking about it today, i realized that sea glass is the result of pollution - i guess it's the only kind i am ok with then (& i didn't think i was ok with any of it)... as you inspect the ocean's offering, you enter a kind of trance... searching for the perfect ____ (you fill in the blank)... and when you do, you treasure it - for you have found a gift that means more to you than anything material... and isn't it interesting how you are satisfied with just one (whatever you found)? in a world where people collect and look for more, you unconsciously stop and feel complete...

science tells us that we feel relaxed and happy at the beach because of the negative ions that are released by the crashing water... that may be true, but i think there is something to just connecting with nature... it takes us to a simpler place... a place where we can just be... a place where we can believe that everything will be okay, that our goals can be achieved and our challenges overcome...