Edges made gentle, we are polished in time.
What sea glass taught me about softening, surrender, and the long work of becoming.
Hi, Substack friends!
Today’s essay is another that just poured out of the depths of me. There’s something about being close to large bodies of water that pull me toward the gravity of their stories. I listen more closely to my heart. I notice details I’d otherwise overlook. My hope is that you might find yourself in my story, and maybe even remember your own stories about scavenging and foraging that opened you up to healing and hope.
On a frigid morning in early November, my friend (whom I’ll call Faith) and I embarked on a day trip to the shores of Lake Erie. Faith developed a love of foraging for sea glass years before, but I never knew about it until she gifted me a charming handmade sea glass necklace last year for Christmas.
I asked her on a whim if she’d mind me tagging along sometime, after she shared that she often took an entire day to drive the two-plus hour distance from northern Indiana to one of a handful of public access sites. She agreed.
Faith picked me up, and I hurled my knee-high snow boots in the back seat of her SUV. She’d suggested this, in case we waded into the water or encountered an unexpected patch of sinking sand. Plus, as one can expect in the northern hemisphere after the fall equinox, the forecast would likely be in the low forties at best.
Turns out the day we traveled, the high temperature was predicted to be around twenty degrees.
After easy highway driving, Faith pulled into a location she said she hadn’t frequented for at least six months but thought would be a good spot to dig for treasures. And, indeed, I learned quickly that this type of activity felt much like a scavenger hunt. Faith handed me a mesh scoop— “I think it’s for kitty litter, but it works really well,” she said—and demonstrated how she raked the areas of shore with piles of small stones. “For some reason I don’t understand, I always find more glass here than where the shells are,” she added.
I trusted her guidance and chose to follow her lead. This was a place and a somatic exercise that enlivened her when little else did. I watched as she bundled her scarf tightly around her neck, secured her beanie over her ears, and offered me some hand warmers to put inside my mittens. Her eyes, which had long lost their light from a hard life, suddenly brightened. Faith was in her element here.
We sauntered along the beach, waved to a young man who had set up a small wooden easel and eight-by-ten canvas, but I had no idea what I was doing. “Just get started,” Faith told me with confidence. “You’ll get used to what you’re looking for.”
“But I don’t know what I’m looking for,” I confessed, and she picked up a shard of pale green she’d somehow spied among hues of brown, amber, onyx, gray, and cream. “Here,” she said, and plopped the glass into the Ziploc bag she’d given me to collect my findings.
From there, we took off on a long stretch of shoreline. Faith became an explorer, and I her expeditioner. We climbed past large rocks that seemed to serve as a sort of barrier, but this didn’t deter Faith. She stopped periodically to rake the stones, gently maneuvering her tools. I was astounded at the ease with which she unveiled glass fragments, most of which were caked with wet sand and sometimes algae.
“The blue pieces are the most rare,” she said. “Usually you’ll find the frosted glass and green ones.” When I asked her why, she said she didn’t know exactly, but when I picked up a large shard of what appeared to be remnants of a green glass bottle, she stopped me. “I wouldn’t take that one. It’s not cooked enough—that’s what I say, anyway.”
“What does that mean?” I asked her, as I tossed the bottle fragment onto the ground.
“It’s what I say when I mean it’s too fresh, too new. You want pieces that are softer around the edges and have an opaque appearance. Those are the best ones to collect.”
As we wound our way around another bend on the shore, Faith noticed two men in the distance approaching us. They were dressed in full hunting gear. One carried a rifle, and the other hefted a giant backpack. The man with the rifle smiled and hollered over the wind whipping between us, “Hi! What are you two doing here?”
“Looking for sea glass,” Faith answered, returning his smile. I had to know what they were doing on a desolate stretch of Lake Erie, so I added, “What are you both hunting today?”
“Ducks,” said the man carrying the backpack, chuckling. “But I doubt we’ll find any today.”
We waved a friendly farewell as they walked onto a sandbar Faith had been eyeing for about an hour. “I really want to walk further out there,” she said, almost breathlessly. “I just wonder, with the water level being this low, if we’ll find something old or unusual that’s washed onto the shore.”
I humored her and followed her through quicksand-like sediment, my boots making a sucking noise each time I took another step forward. Though I felt apprehensive the further we walked, Faith did not. She was in a place she told me was “where I find God,” and I sensed this was a type of meditation for her.
It was during this time I paused to reflect, as Faith dug in a patch of stony granules. Though my nose was numb and the air sliced across my cheeks in icy blades, the setting seemed perfect for contemplation: wide swathes of freshwater, open horizons, and little to no signs of humans or creatures.
Maybe the shards of glass newly washed ashore hadn’t been tempered by time and weather, which is why Faith was drawn to the smallest and smoothest of glass pieces, many of which had been sculpted into odd but unique shapes. Her collection expanded to rusted metal, while mine remained a tidy sampling of those typical frosted and forest green segments.
“Sometimes people find old Indigenous arrowheads,” she told me. “I’ve heard stories from people when I come here who say the beaches are haunted by spirits of ancient peoples, but I don’t know. I just want to understand if what I’m holding in my hand might have been a piece of pottery someone spun two hundred years ago, or this metal rod from a shipwreck—like the, oh, what’s it called? The S.S. Fitzgerald?”
“Edmund Fitzgerald,” I corrected her, and Gordon Lightfoot’s tune instantly popped in my head. I told her how my dad used to sing this song, according to my mom, every night when they hand-washed the dishes during the early years of their marriage. “It’s really an exquisite song,” I told Faith. “Haunting. Phenomenal lyrical artistry. Tells a story of the shipwreck in such a way I always feel like I was there when it happened.” Just then a chill traveled up my neck.
We decided to head back to Faith’s vehicle, because we were both beyond freezing and knew it would be at least an hour’s trek to the parking lot. But I thought about how the sea glass I’d collected seemed a strong metaphor for life. Sometimes I’m the jagged edges, raw with grief and angst, but time softens my heart. Always does. I become the polished sea glass over time, as I remain steadfast and steady, even when tempests brandish me.
What remains is the gem, the buried treasure. It’s what we’re all looking for, isn’t it—that elusive enigma? What will we unearth in the soil and sand of our lives? If we search deep enough, we stumble upon beauty that’s been tried and tested. We find beauty in the ugly, rusted pieces of iron as much as we do in the glimmering clam shells and diminutive, dainty sea glass ornaments.
Maybe that’s why the day felt so therapeutic to me, like a reset. It was a way for me to enter into my friend’s form of prayer and learn from the wisdom of the water and earth. And when I returned home and washed the detritus off my assortment, I realized that everything contains brilliance, if only I have the inner vision to appreciate its value.
Just a heads up that our next live Zoom gathering with Sarah and me will be on Saturday, July 25th at noon Eastern. If you are a paid subscriber, you will receive an email with the link about a week ahead of time. Sarah has some fun questions she wants to ask you. This has been a great way for her to practice social skills and build her confidence, and we love chatting with each of you in real time. Hope to see you then.
I love this story in all its rich detail. And my heart was moved by the heart of it. "If we search deep enough, we stumble upon beauty that’s been tried and tested." 🙏🏼❤️
Oh friend…this writing brings tears to my eyes. The beauty with which you are able to recall your experience creates feelings that are hard to put into words. You have such a true gift of putting words together in a way that your stories can be lived through your writings.