Amie Glover

5 April 2005

 

Shell Sighting!!

 

Sarah and I smile while we dodge waves

 

 

            Before the Spring 2005 semester started, my roommate Adrienne and I drove through Austin to visit our friends in Corpus Christi.  This trip was in many ways surreal – not only finally seeing Sarah, Caroline, and Molly after nearly six weeks apart during the Christmas break, but also seeing them in the town where they’d grown up – and it was one that really seemed to cement our friendship.  We weren’t just friends who’d met at college and lived down the hall from each other.  No, we’d shared a part of their lives: meeting their families, seeing their bedrooms, playing with their dogs, hanging out at their favorite childhood play spots taught us not just about their city but about them.

            One night we played hide-and-go-seek at the playground on the seawall.  We spent hours running around the slides, swinging across monkey bars, and climbing on the outsides of the bridges where only the “big kids” can reach.  Several times while we played, I grinned to myself, remembering all the times I’d wished as a kid that I could climb up the slide, or climb over the sides of the bridges, or hang on the outside of the guardrails.  Now, here I was, nineteen years old, a supposedly mature college student, goofing off on the playground in the middle of the night.   I can’t imagine the night having been any better.

            The next morning, we visited the seashore on Padre Island.  The day was chilly – my toes, wet from the foam and sprinkled with sand, tingled as we walked along the shore.  My curly hair frizzed from the moist ocean breeze, and I could feel the sun warm my back through my jacket as we moseyed along the tide line.  As we walked, Sarah and I looked for sand dollars, but each one we found was broken.  She poked at jellyfish beached on the sand.  I yelled at her to stop.  She did it anyway.  Adrienne laughed and poked them, too.  She also laughs when people pour salt on slugs. My friends are so insensitive.

            While they were busy torturing poor, defenseless animals, I found a seashell.  After picking it up and brushing the moist sand off it, I stuck it, along with my cold fingers in my pocket.  As I stood with my feet in the waves, jeans rolled up, cool wind in my face, a feeling crept over me… I thought, “So this is life… I don’t have it figured out yet, but this is it.”  That’s really not supposed to sound deep or anything; no Garden State memoirs here.  I just thought it.

            Admittedly, I didn’t think of the shell as a symbol of our pilgrimage until after I’d stuck it in my pocket and walked down the beach a little longer.  I remembered it as a symbol of our higher purpose.  I wondered what mine was.  A few ideas came to mind.  I smiled to myself and went back to talk to the agents of animal cruelty…

            … when we returned home and unpacked, took the shell out of my pocket and put it on a shelf over my desk.  Later, I placed it on my bulletin board as a reminder of my fun trip and the great friends I’m blessed and privileged to have, and a reminder to keep my ultimate calling in check.  In many ways, I see my friends as part of my greater purpose.  They’re not my ultimate purpose, nor my highest calling, but they’re such a huge part of it that I can’t imagine going on a pilgrimage without them.

            Needless to say, I was pretty excited when Professor Bump offered extra credit for finding a shell on campus… I just happened to have my shell on my bulletin board.