Drying the Mermaid's Tears

They call them "mermaid's tears," those softly rounded beads of sea glass that wash up with the surf.   Today I discovered that searching for them at water's edge is as meditative as walking a labyrinth:   the rhythmic stepping, bending, and sorting completely rocks my mind to sleep.

We're at a stretch of isolated beach that's just below the blue cobblestones and hilly, winding streets of Old San Juan.  Indigenous grape vines forge a thick barrier between avenue and ocean, but this morning we find a path through the foliage and make our way down to the shore to look for sea glass.



To the west, the walls of the city.  To the east, nothing but sand and sea.  We're just a stone's throw from the capitol building but we're lost in the moment.  There's no one here but us.

When my mind wanders, it takes a peaceful turn: this is why Minda loves her berry-picking; this is something I must do with Silas and Sylvie; this is something my mom would have loved.
 

The ocean softens every shard. It takes plates and broken windows, mirrors, chandeliers, and champagne bottles.  It files away serrations of a frantic industrial world and revises those parts, sanding and buffing until all the angles are muted. On this day the Caribbean smooths my rough edges as well.