Trisha Ricketts

I’m crazy wild about beach glass. Amber, white, aqua, green or the less prevalent cobalt simply dazzle me. I’ve collected it while strolling the beaches of Lake Michigan, the Sound in Seattle, the seashore in Kauai and the Mediterranean surf at Malaga. It’s a Zen experience for me: spot, bend, feel its vibration, put it in the bag, sigh. Oh, the colors are the same wherever I’ve gone beach-larking, which suggests that bottling plants all over the world use the same colorations. Or that global companies brand their products with definitive, similar hues. Think Seven-Up green or Vick’s VapoRub blue.

Occasionally, I find something most rare: a brilliant orange or a crimson red. Then all bets are off on where they came from because…well, I don’t know. Perhaps a candy dish from some 1890s household or a vintage vase from a shipwreck? Which whirls me back into eras long gone-by of mutton sleeves and spats. I guess that’s what makes me sigh.

The truth, however, is that beach glass originates from where I find it—where the water’s power has pulverized rock into sand. Long ago we humans figured out how to heat it to 3000ºF and transform it into glass, then mold it into windowpane or colored bottle. After we’re through with it, we toss it into the lake where water works its magic: turning it with waves of might into something…well…awe-inspiring: a life cycle extraordinaire, isn’t it?

I keep collecting and marveling at water’s majesty manifested in this glassy gift.