As we all know by now, bow ties do not necessarily need to be created with fabric/cloth only. I’ve got bow ties made of wood, leather, vinyl, plastic, feathers, metal, etc. I even have one made from a recycled bicycle inner tube. At one of the Dauphin Island beaches, I arranged Bow Tie o’ the Day out of some of Suzanne’s seashells. I had to hurry to snap this shot, in order to beat the encroaching waves.
Suzanne found some bigly shells, and I immediately started to worry about how we were going to get them back to Utah with breaking them. Suzanne does not tolerate broken shells.
Add Suzanne to a beach where she can trawl for seashells and she becomes a stubborn, non-hearing child. I enjoy walking along beaches, for sure, but… When I’m walking on the sand with Suzanne, I know to just grit my teeth and follow where the seashells lead her. There’s no thwarting her when she’s on the Mission o’ Seashells.
So… one foot after we stepped off the fishing pier and onto the beach, Suzanne’s Seashell Glaze took over her eyes. It’s on. Here’s a shell, there’s a shell. On, she walked and picked up shells. On, I staggered for what felt like miles through the deep sand o’ the beach– setting back my recovery from surgery about a month. I was hurting, dizzy, thirsty for a cold Diet Coke, exhausted– you name it, I was feeling it. Suzanne was oblivious.
And then I looked ahead of me and saw Suzanne paying rapt attention to the grandeur of the ocean, feeling the warmth of every grain of sand between her toes, and touching the raised, undulating textures of shells. She was in heaven. And then, Suzanne looked back and smiled her happiness right at me– letting me know that my being with her on a shell-y beach is a big part of her heaven.
How could I not be happy? How could I not trudge ahead in tremendous joy, despite whatever ills my body felt? How could I not be sure to add that day to my long list o’ Best. Day. Ever.? 💝
This is a BTW, with a TMI alert: From the Best. Day. Ever. at the beach, I am now back in real life, heading out to today’s scheduled doctor appointment– for a pap smear. Worst. Day. Ever. 😱
Up and down, plus and minus. Such is life. 🙃