Sea glass

 

Sea glass 

2 April 2024

For the absolute longest time, I have been enamoured with sea glass. I don’t quite know what it is. Apart from the fact that it’s possibly an analogy for life and the passage of time. How very small we are and how life smooths out our rough edges. This is a lengthy process, yet the end result is just so very, very beautiful.

 

I really detest litter. Simply can’t stand it. Any walk along the beach, or even just a random stroll, sees me picking up litter. I don’t focus on ugly stuff or negative things. So I don’t go through life, seeing the rubbish on the ground. I definitely do look up, appreciate and absorb the beauty around me. Yet at the same time, I simply can’t walk past a discarded straw, bottle top or lollipop stick. By removing it, I like to think that I amplify the beauty that is already there.

 

Few things give me greater satisfaction than looking for sea glass. Especially at our most beloved family holiday house, Kleinbaai. I’ve been doing it for years. And during any time spent at Kleinbaai, I religiously go on a sea glass hunting expedition, at least twice a day. Whilst we’re still busy driving to Kleinbaai, I’ll consult the tide charts, planning my excursions. The first low tide after a spring tide is always the most fruitful. So those are my favourites. However, after every single high tide, the low tide reveals sea glass treasures. And oh boy, are they beautiful!

 

Sea glass hunting sees me going with 2 bags. One for sea glass and one for rubbish. Hardly surprising, but the rubbish bag gets filled far quicker than the sea glass bag. So I suppose that’s actually encouraging. Or depressing. Depending on your point of view.

 

So exactly what is sea glass? Well as the words suggest, it’s shards of broken glass that have been tumbled and smoothed by the ocean. Rough edges now round. Sharp corners now delightfully no longer sharp. In addition, the glass is now longer transparent. More of a milky dusting, due to the endless pounding of the waves, the crashing of glass against rocks and exposure to the elements.

 

I can’t help but wonder how old some of my favourite pieces are. How long ago were they simply discarded and tossed aside? Much as I hate litter, I too was once guilty of throwing glass into the sea. Albeit that it was a message in a bottle to my Dad. A letter I wrote to him, to let him know how we were all doing and telling him how much he was missed and loved. Did shards of that bottle eventually find it’s way back to me again? How long does it take for sea glass to become proper sea glass? I suppose it’s like asking how long a piece of string is. It surely depends on the tides, the rocks, and nature’s unpredictability. Which somehow adds extra allure. Because it’s a mystery.

 

I can weave romantic tales to myself. That all of my sea glass treasures came from messages in bottles. Yet, even I know that it’s highly unlikely. Most often the culprit is beer and wine bottles. The colours that are found most often are white, brown and green. But even within that limited colour range, the palette seems to be endless. So many beautiful shades, that I can sort them out according to their tinge. You get olive green, bottle green (duh), light green and so it goes on.

 

I’m always on the hunt for elusive blue sea glass. After each sea glass hunting expedition, My Grantie eagerly asks me, “so what did you get?”. He’s super indulgent and patient with my obsessions and hobbies. And then I unpack it all and proudly show of my best treasures. Every so often I find a little piece of blue. And my excitement knows no bounds. Those finds are celebrated and greatly praised.

 

Now what do I do with these treasures? I sort them into colours and shadings and I put them in bottles and jars. Dotted around my home, mostly in the bathroom. And also in my garden. And they bring me so much joy. Gaining something so fabulous from other people’s discarded waste. How cool is that?

 

I always take a pic of all my sea glass finds at the end of a Kleinbaai getaway. And then, once the pic is taken, I go through my loot rather meticulously. New, sharp and in my opinion, pieces non-worthy of being classified as old sea glass, are thrown in the bin. Where it probably should’ve landed up in the first place. Not in the sea. Never in the sea again. But rather in the bin. Which most likely means it ends up as landfill. But at least it’s no longer in the sea. And some of it has pride of place in my home.

 

I’ve often wondered how I could make my own sea glass. Cause if I could, I’d go all out. I’d go for broke and the colours of the rainbow – red, purple, yellow, orange, pink, etc. And would you believe it, but you can actually buy glass tumblers. Predictably they’re rather pricey. And it’s a lengthy process, involving multiple stages of rotating and grinding the glass in a nifty little machine, with various gradings of sand.

 

However on the odd occasion, I’ve also considered going the route of my quirky Oupa Willem. He was a firm believer in the miracle of the humble toilet cistern. Why, clean water runs through it multiple times a day. He used this very same method when it came to making his own olives. Yip, table olives. As the bottling of olives starts of with a very long process of rinsing the olives multiple times a day for a few weeks to remove the bitterness. Before you eventually add it to a brine to cure it. To be fair, he only enlightened us with his olive rinsing method, long after we’d already indulged in multiple bottles of his brand.

 

Ironically, he didn’t do this to be funny. Or different. It was just the way his mind worked. It was logical to him. Expedient even. Now as for my Ouma Helene, she would’ve gone for the shock value of such an action. And delighted in it too.

 

But I’m going to stick to old school. Cause the elusive hunt for the very best pieces, whilst I go for solo walks along the sea, is definitely part of the magic for me.

 

If it ain’t broke (if you know what I mean), don’t fix it. Age old sea glass, tempered by nature is completely and utterly magical for me.

 

And thus my hunting will continue. Some of the very best pleasures in life are free. And take a long time to acquire. Which is why they are so special indeed.

 

Hard to believe, but the pics below are all from different visits to Kleinbaai. Cause such is the haul every single time. Crazy!