An old clam shell and I.

He did it again.
The world outside say I shouldn't let it get to me, but it hurts anyway.

 So, like this old clam shell, I added one more layer of hardness over my heart and vowed (though I knew it wouldn't last), to never let anyone matter enough to hurt me again. We settle back to maintain peace as best as we can...till the pressure cooker inside lets off steam. Again.
Its a fact with every relationship, I find. Life, in itself is an experience.

      

 A patch of yellow on its shoulder and a white lump on the other, betray companions who had stuck onto the shell, obviously much later on in the life of the clam. Passengers who had weathered the storms that raged in the seas around them, together. Had they sung with mermaids in the watery beams of sunlight that played on the sandy sea bed and stoic coral where multi colored fishes swam among dancing weeds?  What secrets had they shared, these completely different species from separate worlds, yet so close that even death could not separate them? A symbiotic relationship no doubt.

      Reminds me of the friends who have weathered storms and been the rainbows for me.


         















 I turn it around and it fits perfectly in my hand. Its as if it is mine, beyond the fact that I found it. Born for me. Could it be as old me, its first layer of shell created along with my situation and adding layer on layer along with me? Now isn't that a thought?

        Inside it is smooth, polished, completely different from what it exposed to the world outside to be so easily dismissed as inconsequential, unappealing. 
I rub a thumb over and marvel at it. I enjoy it with my eyes closed...till I meet a slightly, not so smooth patch, an obvious scar. It is white, and I wonder what could it have held so close, absorbed it even to become an extension of its very being. A pearl? A very costly possession created by its own tears? Embraced and treasured. Not shared, not discussed, not to be misinterpreted, not to be judged. Savored as uniquely its own.

        How did the clam loose it then? Was it wrenched out, taken over by someone else; displayed as a thing of beauty while the old clam who had given everything to make it was tossed aside, discarded as worthless? However they were separated it had cost the clam its life.

  This shell found half buried on a sandy beach at the lip of whispering waves, could have been me...or you.