becoming something to treasure

It seemed an appropriate way to tip my hat to my life this last year as 2012 comes to an end:

“On this last day of the year I was thinking about sea glass and what an extraordinarily good metaphor it is for what we all hope for in life. When it was created and initially used, the glass had no value. It was part of a greenish Coke bottle, a brown wine bottle, olive oil, or a blue drinking glass. Nothing of importance. Use up the contents and throw the bottle away. Somehow or other the glass broke and its pieces were scattered. This one ends up in the ocean. For a long time, maybe even years, it lives there being tossed and tumbled, roiled here and there by the whims of the sea. It’s not a good life, but it manages to keep intact. All the time it’s in there however, its sharp edges are being worn away by the water’s constant movement. The violence of storms, the bleaching sun, saltwater… all these things transform it. Eventually it gets washed up on a beach somewhere. It is the same glass it once was but also something new. Not entirely but almost. The color has been burned away by the sun and the acid sea, making the glass more translucent, ethereal, and lovely. It has no more edges. But without them it has taken on a shape, a form, that is often singular and truly one of a kind. Sooner or later someone comes by and notices it. They are immediately attracted. They love it for what it has become. Often they take it home and in some cases, even turn it into a piece of jewelry or something else valuable. Something to treasure."        

-JONATHAN CARROLL