Someone's selling seashells by the seashore

Transience in the sand
Cocoa Beach, FL
December 2020
This photo originally shared on Instagram

Every visit I make to an ocean beach ends with a pocket full of seashells. Or more than one pocket.

It's not like I actually need more dirty ex-crustacean exoskeletons in my life. But somehow it makes me feel better knowing I've held onto a piece of the sea, that I did something tangible to remember having been at this particular spot on this particular day. That feeling of random, wet, sand-covered shells clicking and clacking as I wander off the beach and head back to the real world? Priceless.

The scene you see here, captured in the intertidal zone where waves wash the sand flat as they remove any evidence that anyone was there, has stuck in my brain since I took it on the morning of the last day of the last year of the last decade. At first glance, it looks like randomly scattered shells. But it's the tracks in the sand that stick with me.

Because they'll be here only until the next wave rolls in and redraws the landscape. And shifts the shells a tiny bit. Soon enough, another wave rolls in and does the same thing - new tracks, slightly moved locations. Then another wave, and another, all part of an endless back-and-forth of energy, matter, and what once sheltered life. Stick around long enough to see the longer-lead erosion of the shells themselves. Or even the sand. Because these cycles are timeless. And relentless.

This dance in the shallows takes place largely unnoticed by the few humans who have come to this beach to take in the sunrise. Even when the beach is packed later on in the day, I doubt anyone will take notice of the subtle show playing out at their feet.

Far be it for me to dictate the behaviors of others, but I wish they would. Because they're missing quite the show. And all they have to do is look down.

What does this have to do with the rest of our lives? Still figuring that out.

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