Tiny, Perfect Shells
Shells from Long Beach Island, 2010 July 04
I spent some of this past weekend looking for shells on Long Beach Island. I usually look for the tiny, perfect shells. Many times Iâll find what looks like a perfect shell, only to turn it over and find the back cracked or entirely missing. Sometimes the shell is perfect, save for a small round hole in it that attests to the fact that the animal succumbed to another species of mollusk.
I canât help but wonder when I look at a fractured shell on the beach why it broke into the pieces it did. The fault lines of a shell are sometimes predictable â the clam that breaks along the growth line around the edges or the snail with chips around the aperture. But why would a whelk completely erode around its outside, leaving only a weird central spire intact? Why would a moon snailâs outside spiral look pristine, while the back of the shell is completely missing, revealing the inner spiral inside?
I collect the tiny, perfect shells because they are so tiny and perfect. While all the tiny, perfect shells are miniature works of art, there is little variation between them. If you collect one tiny, perfect knobbed whelk, youâve collected them all. They make great conversation pieces, but they reveal little of their history, and the art of their shells doesnât extend beyond the superficial exterior.
I was struck by the realization this past weekend that the true works of art on the beach are the fractured and worn shells that have been reshaped by tide and time into an essence-of-shell that hints at a story to be guessed at. How did it come to be that the only thing remaining from that conch was its nose, with the entire anterior worn smoothly away? And how did anther conch come to be sliced so that only a longitudinal flat slice remains through the middle, with the sides completely sheared away? What did that glistening golden disc of paper-thin shell look like before it was worn into a rippled coin that I could crush easily between thumb and forefinger, and why didnât the processes that create it crush that bit of remaining shell into oblivion as well?
The tiny, perfect shells might be the ones that get taken home to be put on display under glass, but they are replaceable. If the tiny whelk gets crushed, I can always go out and find another tiny whelk. Itâs the worn shell fragments with history and mystery that are the true treasures. You might not know how they came to be that way, but itâs that history and mystery that make them one-of-a-kind and irreplaceable. The tiny, perfect shells are pretty to look at, but Iâve learned a whole hellovalot more about shells from the worn shells that give me a glimpse into the shellâs inner nature.
I think I also gained a little insight into people and my relationships with them this weekend.
For some reason your entry reminds me of shelter dogs and cats. The ones who are maybe a little bent, a little weathered. They’re not the perfect representations of their species but boy do they have a story to tell and are all the more interesting for it.