oyster shell

So this is the next shell Anne mentions.  It is the oyster shell.  That shell that is used as a house for the oyster.  It is like our home...it is pushed trying to add space for all that is inside it...In mine there are five dogs and me!  But at one time there were kids, grand kids, a husband, friends and so much more.  I live for the day when my house teems again with love and excitement.

Those are the years when a marriage is growing...I love a line from Saint Exupery " Love does not consist in gazing at each other...but looking outward in the same direction."  Think about in the middle of your marriage when you are building on relationships with your kids, with your family, with your friends, you are establishing yourself in your career, you find your spiritual life....you are forming a network that expands and grows...think how your relationship grows as you add these shared experiences and it is firm and loyal.

Many people don't pick up these oyster shells...they are ugly really and rather awkward...it is functional not beautiful like the double sunrise.  It was me at the end of my marriage.  I was the solid functional  one...not the exciting sunrise shell made up of romance like Kathy.  How can that compete? 

I will not pass up an oyster shell on this trip because to it I can relate.  I will pick up every oyster shell because it is me.  I am solid, like it.  I have housed many just like it and now all of that is past.  What is my new shell?  What will I house next?

An oyster shell reminds us of this new stage in life...having shed struggles, having shed worldly ways and materialism...we are finally free to be our self.  Like the oyster shell that has housed many is now free to toss and go...I am finally free to grow in heart, in mind, in spirit...wow...as Anne Lindbergh says "you may find you even outgrow the oyster shell".

I will not pass an oyster shell on the beach.