On a late November afternoon, I am happily splashing
around in the shallow clear waters of beautiful Las Palmas—a gem of a beach
tucked away in a secluded cove near Todos Santos in Baja Mexico.
After a fairly active week in Loreto by the Sea of
Cortez, it hasn’t taken my husband Frank and I very long to fall prey to the
soporific rhythms of the Pacific side. We’ve spent much of our time whale
watching and sampling an impressive variety of beaches—all beautiful in their
own right. But we keep coming back to
Las Palmas because it is one of the few beaches where it's safe to swim and also because it's one of the best kept secrets in the area, thanks
to the almost impossible to find, rutted dirt track that leads down to the
beach. But hey, we’re from Colorado—back roads with rocks
the size of giant ant hills do not phase us in the least.
To access the beach, you have to hike through a shaded
grove of elegant palm trees that remind me of Costa Rica (but without the
monkeys). As
there are no amenities of any kind, we haul two backpacks crammed full of
creature comforts, beach chairs and an umbrella. Within minutes, we have gotten settled into
our temporary encampment and contentedly sit back—anticipating a delicious afternoon
of relaxation. As usual, there are only a half dozen or so other hardy beach-goers
sparsely scattered along the half-mile stretch of sand making it easy to
pretend that it’s ‘our’ private beach. The waves are higher than normal today, so I am
content with just dinking around in knee deep water, far from the reach of the
pounding surf. As I head back to our camp, I spot a sand
dollar lying in the sand, right at the high tide mark. I gasp in delight because it is so rare to
find one intact. I pick it up and examine
the round surface which is delicately etched with five symmetrical petals—a
slightly jagged eye in the center seems to be winking at me crookedly. I carefully carry my treasure over to Frank, a
wide grin on my face. He, too,
appreciates its beauty and comments on how perfect it is. We handle it gently, like fragile Venetian
blown glass.
Encouraged by my find, I set off to hunt for more sand
dollars. Not too far down the wide beach, I find
another one that looks like it’s been chewed up and spit out—the edges are
ragged and the broken back reveals the empty chambers where its tiny
inhabitants once dwelled. Obviously, it
has seen better days. I quickly discard
it as unworthy of any further attention.
As I’m searching for the absolute best sand dollar I
can find—I begin to wonder about my compulsive hunt for perfection. One of the
benefits of my advanced age is that I’ve learned to accept my own little
eccentricities and flaws—and in so doing, I’ve gotten a bit more mellow about
accepting everyone else’s, too. Yet
here I am, scouring this wild beach in search of the Holy Grail of perfection-a
ghostly skeleton that hasn’t been scarred and battered by what must certainly
be a precarious existence on the floor of the ocean. Where
do I get off decreeing that one sand dollar is more valuable than the other? I backtrack and find the discarded
shell-examine it again with renewed interest. Both have lived out their brief
life cycle, yet the first one is so perfect that it reveals almost nothing
about its previous history, while the tattered shell’s appearance tells a
compelling story about the natural forces that have shaped its destiny. The
sea, immune to any artificially imposed standards of beauty and perfection, has
generously offered both sand dollars as a gift to the waiting shore. Suddenly, it seems ridiculous to measure the
worth of these treasures by my own shallow yardstick. I decide that both shells are equally
precious, each in their own unique way.
It is the deliberation with which they’ve been created, the unique
purpose fulfilled, the lasting imprint they’ve left upon the soul of Life
itself that matters more than their physical appearance.
I show the broken sand dollar to Frank. “Should I keep them, do you think?” Even as I’m asking, I know I shouldn’t. The sand dollars are not mine to possess—if
I take them home, they’ll end up in a drawer with other forgotten sand dollars
I’ve collected over the years—they need to stay here where their life
began.
I gently lay
both sand dollars side by side—one perfect, the other misshapen--and before
leaving, I scratch out “Thank You!” in the sand.
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