2.13.12

Sea Shells

While I wouldn't say I'm exactly a collector of sea shells.  The little grouping I do have on my mantle is incredibly special to me.  At the end of my freshman year of college my parents surprised me with a trip to visit my cousin Tammy and her son (who I will refer to as my little cousin) in San Diego, California while her husband was away in the Navy.  To this day it has to be in my top five favorite vacations.  

That vacation was almost a rite of passage for me, even down to the plane trips.  The plan was for me to fly back with her after she had come home for a couple of weeks.  My return trip was my first flight on my own, complete with a transfer at Midway.  Needless to say, I wasn't exactly a frequent flyer.

Some of my favorite memories from the trip were walking along the beach.  Each day we went my little cousin would help me collect sea shells and sand dollars that we deemed extraordinary and beautiful.  Everyday I washed them off and added them to a ziploc bag in my suitcase.  In the evenings, after my little cousin had gone to bed Tammy and I would sit outside on the patio.  We would talk and listen to the ocean in the distance.  What I didn't realize at the time was that those talks were almost a symbolic beginning of the separation from being a kid fresh out of high school to becoming a young adult.  When I think back about those discussions, I realize with gratitude that she talked to me as an adult, not her kid cousin that she and her older sister used to babysit.  

So now when I see those shells, I think of my sweet little cousin (who is still sweet, but probably almost as tall as me) handing me a shell with excitement.  I think of him pointing out all of the jack rabbits as we walked home from the beach, with their big, cute, floppy ears and exclaiming, "Look! They're so tute!" But most of all I smile and think about the sound of the ocean in the evening.