As a kid who grew up on the East Coast and spent many a summer day at the beach, I never cared for seashells.
I would pick up the quality shell, of course, but combing the beach was never a pastime. I was happier digging for sand crabs and getting walloped by waves.
So it was a surprise to find some delight the past few days in hunting for shells.
It takes a quiet mind, I realized, to see the small shells that are there in the high water lines—the scalloped lines that crisscross along the incline of the beach, a field of small shells, seaweed, crab parts (no live ones), and the larger wave-tumbled stones.
It’s relaxing, though, to pay such close attention to such small things. I have missed this, of late, in my outdoor Colorado adventures, which tend toward bigger scales—the vistas and views, forsaking the things we might spot on smaller viewfinders.
Seashell-hunting rocks.
Taylor Coe 