What is perfection?

I have sitting on my desk at home a postcard I picked up somewhere along the way that reads:

“Avid shell seekers know that some days they’ll come away with nothing but a lesson in patience and perseverance.  Other days, their faith will be rewarded with more than they’d hoped for.”

~Jodee Stevens~

I don’t actually remember when I first started to walk a beach gathering shells but I do remember how much my perspective changed about those walks and about what I looked for and found.

It used to be the shells I sought were perfect and unblemished by their rough and tumble journey to the shores, perhaps much like how I envisioned the ‘perfect life’ to be- free from scars, free from broken-ness, fully intact and no parts missing.  But as I got older (and hopefully wiser) and the realities of life came my way, I wore more courageously my own scars and scabs ( some of which were picked open again and again) and saw  light shine more clearly through the jagged pieces of my heart, soul, and mind something interesting happened.

These shells and bits of sea glass and driftwood challenged my idea of perfection and these bits of marine life invited me to pay closer attention to what those cracks and holes really mean for them and for me.  As a reward for having survived the voyage sharp edges were often replaced by smooth and rounded textures.  Those very things I thought had no value because they were broken really were symbolic of strength and transformation and that because of and  not in spite of them we are all those glorious creatures who made it to the shore, sometimes over and over again.