I don’t remember the day or the year, but I remember the moment.

              It was a moment I have thought of often because it was the moment I decided to change from being a shell collector to being a shell leaver.

              OK, so “leaver” is not maybe a proper word. But it fits because it describes a person who might put something back where it was found (even if it is loved) or maybe even not disturb it at all in the first place.

              I was walking on a beach in northern Oregon that doesn’t often offer up shells and when it does, they are most likely to be imperfect.

              Broken shells are OK for me. It was even more years ago that I discovered that broken shells are just as beautiful as perfect ones. They still had color and form; they’d just had a rougher life. They deserved to be loved and so I loved them.

              The collections of shells you will see around my house are just as likely to hold imperfect shells as perfect ones.

              But at this one moment I am remembering now, I came upon a perfect shell. It was a surprise. A gift.

I picked it up and put it in my pocket and walked with it for a bit.

              And then I remembered the other shells I have at home.

And then I heard a little family walking behind me.

              And then I surreptitiously put the shell back on the sand and kept walking, only glancing back much later to ensure that the little family had found the little shell.

              They did.

              I’m old now. Old enough to be done collecting and be more interested in seeing the joy others have when they do.

              Not that every aspect of my life is free of collections. I still find myself in the adding-one-more-treasure mode far too often.

              And not that I have any problem at all with people collecting shells. They are a perfect beach souvenir and a happy reminder of days on the sand -- all the better when they are found in your path – so please, please collect shells. Until you have enough.

              I have enough. I want someone else to have enough. So while I might snap a photo, the shells no longer make it to my pocket. 

              Though I’ve been tempted.

              It was after a storm that I was walking on a beach in Southern California and saw the biggest shells I’d ever seen outside a gift shop.

              I was the only one walking this time, but I stuck with my vow.

              Maybe someone else would find and love them. Maybe they’ll get washed back to sea.

My collection is complete.

              There was something else I noticed along that beach in that cute little beach town after that storm.

              And it wasn’t cute.

It was garbage. Ropes, lids, gloves, bottle-tops. So I came back the next day with gloves and a bag and picked up as much as I had the stomach for.

              It wasn’t a collection I kept, but a collection that still felt meaningful.

              Beautiful shells and abandoned bottle-caps are teeny tiny in the scope of the world.

Can taking or leaving them make a difference?

              Do any of our teeny tiny actions matter at all?

              Yes and yes, I like to think.

              What we do, what we say, what we take, what we leave, what we write, matter.

              It might be teeny tiny.

              But for those walking behind you, those starting out their collections, those walking on a debris-strewn beach after a storm, it matters.

              Let’s do what matters.

This column first appeared in the Davis Journal of Davis County, Utah, in December 2024.