Inside It Sings a Map of the Sea!

Remember when the mail used to be fun?

Remember when it wasn't just bills and bad news and Vote for Me and going out of business sales?

Today, JOY arrived on my doorstep through the U.S.P.S. It literally came to the door, because this box just barely wouldn't fit in the mailbox, and it looks a little like it might rain.

There's a favorite poem of mine called Seashell by Federico Garcia Lorca. Miriam once memorized it at age 4 to perform onstage. It goes like this:

They brought me a seashell.

Inside it sings a map of the sea.

My heart fills up with water,

with smallish fish of shade and silver.

They've brought me a seashell!

(Translation from the Spanish might differ slightly; This is the version we learned.)

I love the sea. I love the shore. I love the sand and the waves and the shells and feeling like a pretty girl walking with her hair windblown. I love the love I associate with the beach. And I love people who are there right now, even though I am not. I told them again this year, as I think I do every single year, that September is my favorite time of year to be at the beach.

I didn't make it to the beach this summer. Time and money were against it and they would not be negotiated with this time around. So we surrendered that to reality. But my dear friend Emily and her family went, and Emily being Emily, she didn't forget. Didn't forget that I love it too. Didn't forget that I couldn't be there, or at any beach, this year. Emily sent me a remembrance.

Come with me. Open it with me.

This is the inside of the box, the initial "Welcome!" This tells you Emily's heart. The first thing she wants the recipient to see. 

The lid is covered in artistically presented snips of stationery, covered in her favorite song lyrics. Emily's heart, shared, in her own handwriting, brightening up the brown cardboard.

There's a beautiful box within the box.

 And seashells! And more!

I don't quite feel worthy of opening this pretty box. What treasure waits inside?

Did I mention that Emily makes everything beautiful? Even something as lovely as this gets further adorned by the presence of a strip of crocheted material.

A Hawaiian anklet, I think. Each flower is made of shells. "I always wear one on the beach," her note says.

A bottle of water. It says "ocean water" on it.

Yep. It passed the pinky taste test--salty, gritty. That's the Atlantic in that bottle. You can even smell it.

 

Another package in the bottom, under the shells.

Emily is the Queen of the Mixed CDs to make you happy. This is Sunny Days, volume 3. And it has real beach sand adhering to it. 

The liner notes are not a list of tracks, but a list of reasons for the tracks. Why Emily thought each one should be included.

 

Reason #8. I can hardly wait to listen and find out what this song is.

A bit of wisdom and encouragement, pasted to the bottom of the box, under the shells and sand.

What a lovely treat from a lovely friend.

My heart fills up!
Surely, it sings!