My pandemic reading list began long ago with a book of essays by Barbara Holland called Endangered Pleasures: In Defense of Naps, Bacon, Martinis, Profanity, and Other Indulgences. Needless to say, it was the right book at the right time, and it continues to deliver wisdom when I open it for consultation and guidance. I also read Patricia Hampl’s The Art of the Wasted Day and Jenny Odell’s How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy, but it is Holland’s collection I keep coming back to for validation that joy and pleasure, and as much leisure time as possible, are things worth building a life around. I often read to be challenged with new ideas, but sometimes I just want to nod along in perfect companionship with someone I’ve never met. Sure, I would love to sit on the porch drinking martinis and eating bacon with Barbara Holland wiling away hours together finishing each other’s sentences; however, a conversation in essays will have to do.
One of Holland’s essays espouses the value of scenery in one’s life; the beauty and necessity of a pleasing backdrop as our lives unfold. She isn’t talking about home decor but rather the landscapes we seek outside of our day-to-day lives: the scenic overlook, the room with a view, the National Parks, or the city giving way to the wild country.
I’m looking for the landscape more than anything when I travel, something new for the eyes and the soul. Holland wonders if we seek out this scenery out of some primal urge for the long view that protected us when we had to scope out the savannah for predators. The longer we could see, the better for survival. Now, she ponders if we are just bored and in need of “visual entertainment” or even something to “elevate the spirits.”
Many go to mountains, to rivers, and to lakes looking for scenery. I can enjoy all of these places in nature, but I will always return again and again to a coastline: ocean, gulf, or bay. I want to sit on the edge of the land and watch the water and the horizon lulled to relaxation and quiet contemplation. Even though I have access to this in my daily life living so close to the beach, I still prefer this kind of scenery on vacation and am amazed at how different beaches can be across states and countries.
One of my favorites is Bowmans Beach on Sanibel Island on the gulf side of Florida. The water is a blue-green color only seen in the 64 box of Crayola crayons with a name like Robin Egg Blue or Caribbean Blue, or a nail polish color like To Infinity and Blue-yond, or Turquoise and Caicos. The color seems so unnatural to my Atlantic Ocean sensibilities that I have to turn to man made, factory made objects to describe it. The shade of the water seems brewed and concocted from some beautiful mix, Neptune’s laboratory I suppose. When I submerge myself in the still waters, I feel like I’m soaking in something otherworldly. I understand the beliefs people have in the healing properties of certain bodies of water. I can give myself over to that notion as I sink into this gorgeous water and it coats my skin like an elixir. I sit in the shallows and let the water soothe me. I’ve moved beyond mere scenery to an experience as I swim and play and walk on this lovely coastline.
At Sanibel Island, there is more to see than just the water. The beach is blanketed in unbroken shells and I am dazzled by the display, unused to seeing gift shop quality shells crunching underfoot. The lap lap of the water pushes them onshore, and the tide rolls out and gives more. I have always collected trinkets from the sea. They seem like offerings to me. I don’t even mind the broken pieces that are more common. They have their own lesson to teach, about beauty and brokenness, flaws and perfection. But a shell tossed by the whims and fury of water that arrives whole on the sand is a marvel that can’t be denied.
Suddenly a new scenery stretches all the way down the beach, and my head is bowed as if in prayer taking in the scattering of shells. I am always inclined to start taking whatever I can carry. But recently, I was rereading Robert Macfarlane’s book The Old Ways, and he writes that maritime cultures have a long history of people throwing things into the sea as an offering, giving rather than taking. They give to the sea in exchange for safe passage or to gain favor.
If you are around the ocean enough, you can begin to see it as more than just scenery. It is full of moods, and I understand the impulse to offer up something. The more you look at it, the more mysterious it seems to become. Usually, the study of something loosens its secrets, but for me the ocean just becomes more steeped in wonder after all these years of coming to its shores.
On a recent visit to Back Bay Wildlife Refuge in Virginia, we took a tram ride into the deeper reaches of the wildlands. We stopped at an historic settlement of an early group of seafaring peoples that lived beside the sea long ago. I was struck by the gravesites adorned with shells and was moved by these gifts of remembrance connecting the dead to the life and culture of the beach.
On Sanibel’s beaches in Florida, I collected a few shells to add to the scenery in my home and in my office. I like to put them in my pockets and purse and touch them unexpectedly in the busy hours of a workday. They are on my desk and window ledges, piled in jars and little bowls and teacups. It’s a little bit morbid, but my hope is that my children and grandchildren will find a way to put these shells and the shells they collect on my gravestone so they always remember my undying love for the sea.
We’ve collected sea glass and shells for years …. I’ve never been to Sanibel Island but now…. I am going ASAP!!It is only three hours from us ,so maybe this weekend 😍😍😍 thank you for the visuals and the serenity this story brought me!