An Imperfect Circle

I have run away. I left behind the perfectly staged house, the newly manicured yard, the hustle and bustle of Northern Virginia.  I am going back to a personal beginning place in my life. I'm at the beach.

I am not a beach person. I don't sleep easily- heat, sand and bugs don't make sleeping on the beach any easier.  I sunburn without ever really tanning. The sun in my eyes makes reading difficult.  I'm always a bit nervous in water. There are no mountains. Why am I here?

This time it's because our best friends are here for a family celebration and I'd go to Antarctica to join them. Except they'd never ask me or go to Antarctica themselves. They're beach people. And they happened to plan their celebration at a beach I know.



 Another life ago, Bill and I were in our first year of marriage and experiencing our first summer on the East Coast.  Our first summer of heat above 85 degrees and humidity above 20 percent. It was shocking after Colorado summers. "Let's go to see the Atlantic Ocean."

It was a disappointment to say the least. We had honeymooned in San Diego. I had sunbathed in Southern California. That was an ocean. This was small and had no waves.  The beach was shallow and had lots of small pebbles and weird prehistoric helmets crawling in the dirty sand. It smelled funny. There were no seashells.  "This is the Atlantic?"

Well, no actually, it wasn't.  We had launched off the road a bit north for the ocean and landed on the shores of the Delaware Bay. The thin sand strip between bay and marsh.  That first trip we traveled another five miles further south and found Cape Henlopen, the hook of land jutting into the Atlantic.  Wide, sandy beaches, waves.  But still no seashells. Maybe a few small ones.


Over the years, I have collected hundreds of seashells from dozens of beaches.  Beautiful and fragile.  They have been wrapped and unwrapped, stored in sturdy plastic boxes, handled with care, shown with pride and concern. They are beautiful and fragile.

Like my life.  I handled the first half of life concerned I would break it or it would break me. Beauty was elusive.  I felt as fragile as the thin shells and delicate coral.   The memories of perfect beaches became preserved in plastic storage cases- sanitized and held at arm's length.


 It has been thirty-three years since I was last at the Delaware Bay. It's still narrow and lacking in shells. It can smell funny when the wind blows from the marsh. But I am older and wiser and the beach is full of beautiful stones.  Stones tumbled in the relentless waves.  Rough stones becoming smooth ovals, gemstones of nature's actions,  as close to perfect circles as rocks will become. 

I've come my own circle- an imperfect circle. I'm still the woman who came here three decades ago but I am no longer searching for fragile, elusive seashells. I am no longer fragile. Life has tumbled me. Worn off my sharp edges. Smoothed my restless soul.  Created beauty for ashes.



I am back at the same beach and looking forward, not to finding the ocean that I sought as a young woman, but to the beauty in the ordinary. The comfort of smooth rocks that will not break but are smooth to hold,
useful for anchoring flowers,  pretty piled in a glass.












Sometimes it's good to return. To circle back. To see how far you've come. To see beauty in today.

		The Spirit of the Lord GOD [is] upon Me, Because the LORD has anointed Me To preach good tidings to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to the captives, And the opening of the prison to [those who are] bound; To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD, And the day of vengeance of our God; To comfort all who mourn. To console those who mourn in Zion, To give them beauty for ashes, The oil of joy for mourning, The garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; That they may be called trees of righteousness, The planting of the LORD, that He may be glorified." Isaiah 61