My favorite thing to do is walk the beach on Sanibel Island in the early morning when it’s still dark. I move through the surf at low tide with a flashlight seeking uninhabited shells, humming the same two songs. For years, when I’m totally at ease and happily engaged, I always mindlessly hum these mysterious tunes.
I finally decided I needed to figure out what they were, so did some snooping around—online and in my past. It turns out that when I am at my happiest, I’m either humming “You and I” from the movie “Goodbye, Mr. Chips,” or I’m humming the theme song from “My Three Sons.”
I get the “Goodbye, Mr. Chips” song, as my sister and I used to play the soundtrack album all the time. But My Three Sons? That’s a bit disappointing.
Sanibel Island is still recovering from last September’s devastating Hurricane Ian, and we can’t afford to just pop down there often any way, so I have the next best thing: My own ‘beach.’
I bought the table at Target. Melissa collected the fine white sand at the base of a nearby limestone cliff, and I dried it with a hair dryer. Then all our Sanibel shells, and a few from the Atlantic, went into the table. When I’m frustrated or tired, I open the glass lid and play with the shells, turning them over, identifying the ones I don’t know, and running the sand through my fingers.
But I do not hum “You and I” or the “My Three Sons’ theme song. For that I need to be walking on the beach at Sanibel Island, in the dark, with a flashlight.
(Not sure what this little guy is…but definitely alive…)
4 Responses
Ever meet a stingray while walking with your flashlight, or do you do the Sanibel shuffle?
Ha! I didn’t know about the Sanibel shuffle until after! Now I will definitely practice it. 🙂
What a great idea of what to do to display your shells. I love it. Wish you could get to the beach for real. 🙁
Working on it… 🙂