Living and Birding Gratitude: My Shell Collection

I have mentioned my uncle, who we all called, Unk, and my vacations with him and my Nana in Florida. They are without question, the best memories of my childhood into adolescence. They were two weeks. The first week was always spent on Sanibel (and Captiva) Islands. I began collecting shells there, as you do. I had a large collection in boxes and whatnot, but in my early adulthood, Unk built me a glass top coffee to hold at least a portion of the best ones. My larger shells remained out (a very few of which I still have). When we moved the first time to Australia in 2011, what became known as the Shell Table came with me. Because of a lack of space, it was stored away and when the accommodations changed, it remained stored for ages.

Here is a photo from Captiva Island, Florida in September of 2013 and I had lined up the shells I found in exactly the way that Unk and I would line up our shells when I was a kid in the late 1950's and 1960s. Florida represented heaven to me then. Literally, heaven.

Eventually it was set up with the shells in it (they had been stored in boxes) in 2015 at the Torquay family home and finally in 2017 it was reunited with its glass top. The top had travelled back to the USA, remained in its packing, and was shipped back the Oz on this my last, and my final, ever trans-hemispheral move. I will not move from Australia ever again.

Now the table is part of a new house setup in Geelong and Rebekah has painted it lovely ‘beachy’ colours and I am sure it is happy and thinks that it looks pretty. The shells are out and on a blanket waiting for sand to be put into the table. Side note: I slept under that same yellow blanket on my first trip into Gluepot in 2012. There were some chilly nights. Anyway, here are some photos of what is left of my shell collection.

And I do love shells. Oh you wonderful mollusks, how splendid to leave behind such incredible beauty once you have passed on. I can only hope that my writing and my songs can have at least slightly similar continuing existence after I am gone. That is why publishing is so important to me. I am quite serious when I say; I write therefore I am. I also mean it when I say, I share therefore it’s real. And I truly believe that the more love you give away the more you will have for yourself. Yeah, I am selfish like that.

Here are some pictures of my shells and my table and then it's new colours with the shells and sand.

Here is a photo from the far in the past. My cottage on the Outer Banks of North Carolina about 28 years ago. So much of that cool stuff is long gone now. The shell table is in the front left of the photo.

And lastly, below is an Australian Trumpet Shell, Syrinx aruanus. This shell was Lynn's and she gave it to me after we were married (29 years ago). I do still have this shell here at the house. Sadly, I no longer have the alligator with a pig in its mouth on the right. Oh, and they're resting on my great-grandfather's 100 year old oak roll-top desk that I have had most of my life, but that I have passed it on (it was deemed too big for this final move to Oz). I really thought I would always have that desk, but things, as cool as they are, are still just things... (the sculpture on the left by my niece, Natalie I also still have here. I do love that piece of art).
But, I will be travelling... and writing, and that is even better than cool 'stuff.'