Spectacle Island

Spectacle Island

 

 

You know you’re a sea glass addict when you are out on a rainy day, crawling on rocks and sand on all fours, so you can see all of the glass beneath below your fogged-up glasses face.

 

 

“Only the crazy’s are out,” one of the people at the café said.  

 

 

“It’s opening day for us,” I said, giddy with the discovery my friend shared with me. She, had been last season but it was my first time. The rain and cold kept most others away. “They don’t really love sea glass,” I reasoned. “Or we’re crazy,” one of the woman said.

 

 

It could we worse we all reasoned. We could be drunks. Or chasing tornadoes. Not that digging through glass on islands which used to be dumps and have signs warning about asbestos is exactly without hazard.

 

 

Upon seeing more sea glass on one beach than I’ve seen in one year of regular collecting I did what any mature and responsible adult did – I was that over-sized ten-year old under a piñata knocking over the toddlers and making them cry so I can get all the candy, prizes and even stick my hand into that cardboard cactus to be sure there isn’t a piece I might havemissed. I wasn’t paying attention to anyone left crying by my drive and uninhibited desire. I might have actually made oinking sounds as I rolled around in the mud.

 

 

I’m talking red and aqua blue and marbles. I’m talking thick, heavy and substantial shards.

 

 

Poetry Shard

Two tiny white

whole bottles

still whole.

Purple patterns on pink pieces,

seaweed slipping past fingers

lifting glass still moist with the ocean’s spit.

I carried home a still wet load

Of the ocean’s laundry.

 

 

Guilt mixed with pleasure. A bounty. Gems. Greedy and grabby. Green pieces tumbled so long they return almost to stone. I imagine wearing this stunning color, art, a dot, a blot of color marking my neck and celebrating the sea, scarred with the ocean by nature’s tattoo turned ornamental.

 

 

And yet, my focus was at the feet. I didn’t breathe in the ocean air, look up and scan the landscape. The pleasure was all in the gathering. But there were almost too many pieces to grab. Instead of the treasure, the long-awaited “find” after seeking there was too much. Discretion was needed and I couldn’t leave anything alone.

 

 

Tactile. Touchstones. Simple. Strong. I’m full. I’m buoyed. Devoured. Later I will sort and sift the pieces, lift and stare and linger. Too easy to skip the devotion and the seeing when in a hurried rush to gather only. Even with a passion, with sea glass, the appetite of the eyes can be bigger than the belly’s need.

 

 

I love the return of grazing and nibbling all day and walking the local coast where the hot rocks are beneath my hand and every now and then a gem. It’s almost too hard to go to a place so filled with bounty. I’m sure I’ll get used to it as I’ll return.

 

I confess that I hesitated to post about this place. What if it is ravaged by others? But I am one who seeks and is also a scavenger. This island, this passion, this obsession is not mine to give away or to take.  

 

 Spectacle Island is one of several Boston Harbor Islands. For more information, go to:

http://www.bostonislands.org/isle_spectacle.asp