Take Another Look

TAKE ANOTHER LOOK

A few recent finds

I've had the good fortune of doing a lot of sea glass hunting lately. Alas one of my 'best' sites I discovered last spring is actually contaminated with toxic chemicals so I'm no longer allowed to hunt there (damn, I knew there must have been a reason I was the only one who ever combed that beach and found some really great stuff!). Now I've been hunting mostly in Salem and Gloucester, and with the recent waves whipping up from distant Atlantic hurricanes, some beautiful pottery, marbles and glass have turned up. I'll be photographing a catalog of my best finds from this summer later this month - but for now, I'll just say that an important lesson I've learned in sea glass hunting is to "take another look." After lots of sea glass hunting this past year (I have literally at least 100 pounds of it that need to be sorted and stored for winter art work), I sometimes get a bit blase about bending over for "just another white piece of pottery," especially when my muscles and joints are quite sore from an hour or two of the repeated activity. When I do start walking away, sometimes a nagging little voice in my head says, "No, really! You need to pick that one up." Inevitably, when I turn the piece over I find it has a beautiful pattern or writing on it. Not every time, but frequently enough to make me wonder -  is someone tagging along with me - a spirit of a past relative, or a guardian angel who also enjoys my past time and doesn't want me to miss out on a treasure?  I wish I had that same luck with the lottery ("hey little voice, can you give me 6 good numbers today?!"), but in the big picture, I realize that I'm incredibly fortunate to live where I live, to travel where I go, to gain the knowledge I have and keep getting, and to be able to collect these tiny links to the past which have the ability to thrill me. I have big plans for all the sea pottery and glass I've collected - hopefully I'll be working on it this coming winter. Sea glass hunting allows time for introspection and mindfulness. "Take another look" also applies to my daily life, when I'm not really looking at some people, situations or things as thoughtfully as I should.