REFLECTIONS ALONG THE SHIFTING SHORES OF ASSATEAGUE ISLAND
I sat on fragments of what once were rocks, shells, stone, and time itself. Near the ocean, they remained coarse. Further upshore, they grew finer and finer, as though the Atlantic had spent centuries sanding the sharpness out of everything it touched. The sea kept arriving, bringing nature’s endless refinement of minerals and memory.
Fresh saltwater brushed the shoreline in strokes of milky foam, millions of tiny bubbles gathering briefly only to disappear back into the sand.
I watched my footprints behind me vanish with every returning wave, each stride erased in a single swipe by the same water that placed it there. The relentless breeze carried the waves forward as though rushing to meet the fondest heart it had ever known. And still, what was imprinted disappeared. A lone shell resting higher on the shore will one day move farther inland, shedding little by little, breaking from one into many.
Those fragments too will become particles fine enough to settle into higher ground, quietly buried into dunes as this island keeps growing upon the remains of what once was. Nothing here truly disappears.
It simply becomes smaller, softer, finer, until it belongs to something larger again.
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©️Photos May 18, 2026 | AllinGoodLight | Raj Manickam - Reflections along the shifting shores of Assateague Island