This morning, finally, Housemate and I brought our bowl of pretty shells and rocks to a nearby island. It's right near our house, connected to the mainland by a causeway. It has several beaches -- one sandy, most rocky -- and a running path around the perimeter. We took the dogs down to the beach and tossed the shells and rocks we had collected into the water, or up on the border of the crabgrass, for someone else to find.
It's going to mix some beachcombers up. We sprinkled dozens of sand dollars around. I've never seen a sand dollar on this island. These ones came from Popham beach one magical winter afternoon. Three big moonshells. I remember finding about five moonshells, the size of my fist, on Crescent Beach way back when. (I kept two.) And then there were the pebbles from Orcas Island in Puget Sound, from a road trip I took with Housemate back in 1998, back when she lived in California. We laughed as we tossed those to the left and the right. A friend's rock collection, with mineral specimens, got added to the natural rocks on the beach. We imagined some amateur geologist marvelling at finding Sillimanite on Mackworth Island. The big heart-shaped granite stone I found at Kettle Cove. Goodbye. Ooh, said Housemate, showing me a nice brown-and-grey stripey rock. This one came from Iceland -- my ex-boyfriend gave it to me. Tossed aside. I said goodbye to five or six magical translucent white stones, rounded and soft, almost glowing, that I loaded into my pockets one visit to Crescent Beach. We got a little clingy as we came to the bottom of the bowl. "Maybe we should just keep this shell -- see how pretty it is?" Housemate asked. I shook my head. I showed her a small stone that I think looks like a lion's head. She was unmoved. We emptied the whole bowl.
On our way back along the beach, as we went to return the bowl to the truck and start our run, my eyes were scanning the sand below me. It's a habit. Three times I almost bent down to pick up something we had sprinkled there. Wow! A sand dollar!