Shells and Wonders

Last weekend, my wife Pat and I left town for an overnight getaway in Pacific Grove, escaping the frenzy of Super Bowl Sunday. Our first destination was to witness the annual migration of monarch butterflies cavorting in a quiet grove of eucalyptus and pine trees. We timed it just right and got to see them flitting silently in the suddenly warm February air and performing their spiraling mating dance. I had never seen that before, nor had I witnessed the struggle on the ground as the male demonstrates his strength by overpowering his chosen female. Once she is convinced that he has the Right Stuff, she suddenly submits and is carried limply into the highest branches for their honeymoon. Lest you think I am making this up, all these details are courtesy of the excellent docent who was versed in the love-making antics of Lepidoptera.

Our next visit was to Monastery Beach, where we had seen whales and dolphins on our last trip. As we emerged from another eucalyptus grove onto the shore, I caught the scent of seaweed and salt. I closed my eyes and traveled back to one of my first recollections. In that memory, which I have revisited countless times in my dreams, I am playing in the sand as gentle waves lap the crowded beach and children laugh. Then I go for a ride in a glass-bottomed boat with my parents, where I gaze down upon kelp and catch fleeting glimpses of mysterious sea creatures below. I am four years old. How do I know that? Because it was also the first time I had ever seen a play in a theatre and I somehow managed to keep the playbill from that event, over 50 years ago.

Of the melodrama at California’s First Theatre, I remember little, except sitting on wooden benches, eating popcorn and booing the mustachioed villain of the show. But of the beach, I remember everything: the cool summer breeze, the tiered sea wall, the pier, the gentle curve of the shoreline, the wet sand, the excitement of finding tiny shells, and the fading afternoon light. Most of all, I remember the sense of wonder.

Thinking about all that as we walked along the shore helped me understand my melancholy over the fact that my daughter is in her final semester of high school and will soon to be off to college. It is the realization that one of the best things about having a child is that it allows you to relive your childhood. She finds a special shell, sees a butterfly for the first time, voyages across the sea in a glass-bottomed boat—and you get to experience that moment again, seemingly for the first time. Yes, I know that there are countless wonders left for her, but I won’t be around for most of them, and that makes me sad.

Lover's Cove - the stuff of dreams

The next morning, Pat wanted to leave town by driving along the waterfront in Pacific Grove. Suddenly, she stoppped the car at a beach called Lover’s Cove and suggested a short walk. At first, I was reluctant to submit myself to the drizzly morning air, but I soon realized that her request was a rhetorical one (I am getting better at picking up on those), and we got out.

As we crossed the road and stepped onto the promenade, I felt a rare sense of déjà vu. In all the times I have visited the Monterey Peninsula over the years, how could this be the first time I ever noticed this particular beach? Yet the view is unmistakable—I have been here before.

I close my eyes and, for the second time in as many days, I am transported back to my youth. But the sensation of sand running through my fingers mingles troublingly with the thoughts of my daughter’s childhood years slipping away, and the inexorable erosion of five decades of my own life. I redouble my efforts to hold onto the dream and slowly the sadness washes away. I am only four and all the world is contained in the wonder of a tiny shell left by a receding wave.

A replica of the glass-bottomed boats in Lover's Cove