'The Promise I Made - The Promise I've Kept', an essay
and the latest piece in my "Our Stories Are Held" paper bag mixed media collage series
My mother told me the first time she took us to the beach, as soon as we walked over the dunes to finally behold our destination, our eyes grew wide. My brother zeroed in on the waves, and took off toward the ocean. All my eyes could see was the glorious, endless sandbox upon which my tiny, pink feet stood. She said it took some time before I even noticed the water.
I wasn’t yet two when I fell in love with the beach and all of the treasures it beheld. Of bird and crab, castle and sea, it was the seashells that did it - they stole my little heart.
Every year, I looked forward to visiting Mamoo and Pappy at their beach house, two blocks away from my endless sandbox. Lined on a ledge of their back porch was their permanent collection of large, imperfect conch and whelk shells; I checked every summer to see if it had grown.
One summer at that beach two blocks away, I remember making a promise, which I’ve kept to this day. I stood, pink-footed on the hot sand, blonde pigtails bouncing off of my head, staring into my cupped, sandy palm, as I blissfully held the most beautiful sunrise-striped lilac and ballet-slipper-pink coquina shell, my two favorite colors at the time, and whispered, “I will always love you.”
What that meant was, there would never be a time when I wouldn’t appreciate and adore everything about a shell: their varying sizes, even the tiniest ones; all of the delightful shapes and textures; their delicate stature, even making sure the broken ones felt loved by choosing them, too; the knowledge of the creatures they once held; and above all, all of their delightfully perfect colors and color combinations.
As a five-year-old, confident artist, browns and earth tones had never thrilled me. I was more of a rainbow gal. But, seashells changed my mind for good. I had never seen such an array of colors displayed on the world’s most beautiful objects. Indeed, these sepias, olives and rusts have since become as equally beloved as their bright and cheery cousins all because of shells.
Nothing was as special as collecting shells with my Mamoo. She has long been gone, but when I think of her today, I picture her bent down, matching my excitement with her warm smile as we find a good shell, using the corner of her white, unbuttoned overshirt to wipe it off before handing it to me to place in the large bucket she’d carry for us. Her legs, drizzled with purple lightning-bolt veins under her knee-length crisp chinos, frail but never tiring of doing the work up and down the beach to hunt with me. She knew the names of the shells and her breath and golden, wrinkled skin as soft as silk, smelled like cream with a little coffee in it, the way she liked it, and Chanel No. 5: sand and sea edition.
As we’d prepare to leave for home, I would wrap up my treasures in paper towels to keep them safe and sound for their return inland and hours away from the sand and sea. When I’d get home, I’d just as carefully unwrap them and set them, perfectly lined up on a shelf in my bedroom, just like Mamoo’s outdoor collection.
Walking over the dunes and onto the beach, with my kids running ahead - one stopping in the sand, and two heading straight to the sea - I join my youngest, who has picked up a perfectly imperfect chipped scallop shell, and hold the bucket out as he places it ever so carefully in the bottom. I recall a promise I once made when I was about his age, and wonder if he has made the same.
