When I was a child I used to go down to the beach. It was only a five minute walk from my house to the shore and because of this it became a frequent destination through the temperate southern Spanish year. Mostly I went with a dear friend, although sometimes I was alone, and we would spend hours combing the sand for things. Occasionally we would go looking for something particular but mostly we went in search of the search. We began over a period of years to collect things, mostly shells, though once we found an old rusted skeleton key that we became convinced was from a ship wreck hundreds of years ago and could we but locate the chest we would be infinitely rich with gold doubloons. Our greatest joy and most fastidiously collected item was sea glass. This was simply fragments of broken glass that over time had their jagged edges worn smooth and their glossy, clear surfaces pitted and roughened until they bore a certain look, not quite a patina but a roughness that not only made them more milky and translucent but also more desirable in our eyes. Owing to the convenient (for drunk sailors and amorous midnight couples) beach side location of the local bars, most of our precious sea glass probably came from banal things like broken beer bottles, but this did not taint our love for the new creation that Neptune heaved back on shore. Like ugly caterpillars the glass went into the sea and then emerged, weeks, maybe even months later as the beautiful butterfly-glass, transformed from trash into treasure.
There was a hierarchy within sea glass collection that my friend and I maintained rigorously. Each color of sea glass held a certain intrinsic worth and was therefore given a trade value. The deep, cobalt blue held the highest value as it was rarest. Between the two of us we perhaps had three or four pieces. But these small bits were worth much more as they could be traded amongst us as currency. Surprisingly, clear was also quite rare; apparently there are not many beer bottles that are clear. However, despite its relative rarity, being dull white made it ugly and plain, therefore lowering its value. There were many shades of brown, from light amber to nearly black, and these numbered greatly in our collections. Green, though, was the most common. The sea never failed to divulge just for us countless pieces of green sea glass. The dull and boring bottle-green underwent its own kind of alteration in the depths, returning to the sand as a smooth, translucent and almost liquid shade of palest green. So beautiful was this color that even now it defies description and remains burned in my memory as the essence of the sea. Though the green pieces were great in number, I could never get enough; my collection swelled as my desire for it grew. In my mind, the green is so prevailing that all other sea glass falls away, and the soft fluid green is all that is left.
I didn’t realize it the first time we met; I was distracted and nervous, consumed with the future and unexpectant. It wasn’t until months later, when I returned home from the other side of the world, rejected and heartbroken that I saw you again. In my absence you had intimated yourself into the familiar patterns of my old life, which I picked back up and threw on like an old coat once I returned. Even now I cannot place exactly in time when the thought occurred to me, it seemed to be revealed so gradually, that by the time my mind understood it, the idea already seemed a part of me. When I looked into your face I realized that your eyes were exactly the color of sea glass.
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