Unknown Sands

A descriptive writing piece about Bermuda

Kim Diesso – 1999

Revised

Kim Blenkhorn -2023

The tiny islands of Bermuda are actually made up of more than 100 islands, formed by extensive volcanic activity. The island is known and loved for its white sand, pink beaches and turquoise waters. I find it interesting that something as ruinous as a volcano could produce one of the world’s favorite tourist attractions. This past Spring, I had the privilege of visiting the little island of Bermuda.  It was the most beautiful place I have ever been to. I spent most of my time at a private beach contemplating life and absorbing the unique landscape and seascape.  I can’t remember the name of the beach, but I do remember how it made me feel. I remember the long walks back and forth on the beach, I remember searching for shells that I never found and wading Bermudas warm bathwater. We forget what people tell us, but we never forget how they make us feel, isn’t that true for the places we may visit?

The sand, on this beach with no name, was white with teeny tiny specks of red and white shell fragments. From a distance these colors make the sand look like a pink blanket for a new baby. It was only as you got close enough to pick up a handful of it and let it gently trickle through your fingers that you could see the pieces of shells. No doubt, these fragments began as whole shells, but, I assumed, as the waves abused them beating them against rocks and throwing them down to the ocean floor and sweeping them up again, they were broken over and over again. Now only together, like a stained-glass window could they be beautiful again. I thought deeply about these shells, that before they could make this beautiful pink blanket, they first had to go through something terrible, a journey of a thousand trials and shattered beyond recognition, like the island itself forged in the literal fires of adversity. But, I imagined this beach was their final home, just as God always intended, not whole but part of a whole; like the body of Christ. Perhaps, we will one day be just tiny pieces of something that had been broken on earth but together in heaven making something exquisite. The sand looked as though God sprinkled it with a sunset. It was truly the definition of beauty. I guess suffering does have a purpose.   The sand was warm too, from the sun beating down all day, warm on our feet and between our toes, even though the air was cool and breezy enough for a sweater. We walked barefoot to keep warm.

The water was like a crystal lake I read about in heaven, made from the tears of the saints.  It was warm, like really warm and inviting. Warmer than the air. It was pure, totally void of anything that might threaten my peace. There were no creatures or critters, no obscurities, no sharp pieces of debris or rocks. The deeper into the water we went the clearer it became. I could see my feet as if the water didn’t exist as a barrier between my eyes and my lower extremities. I’d never witnessed anything like it before, it was like glass, clear, clean and the surface undisturbed. In every direction I looked I saw different colors. If I looked to the shoreline, I saw the pink sands. If I looked to the ocean, it was an aquamarine color. If I turned around to my left there was a deep navy blue with bits of green. I didn’t understand how it was possible. I just stared for the longest time suspended in disbelief. There was not one rock or shell to be stepped on, a far cry from our cape cod coast line and the rocky shores of new England.

It was off season in Bermuda, so the beach was mostly deserted, except for the occasional lovers walking hand in hand. There were two massive rock structures, one to the far left of the beach and one to the far right of the beach. They stood like two giant sphynx guarding the southern oracle and the lovers. They hid us from the outside world. I felt safe. I was free from all that haunted me at home. This unknown beach felt like a deserted island and we it’s castaways. There was a coral reef that wrapped around the island about two miles out from the shoreline. When the tide was low enough you could see the tops of the sharp reef, more soldiers with drawn swords. My husband said it protected the island years ago from pirates. I knew we stood in the crucible of beauty, the fire which brought forth gold, the culprit in breaking all the shells into the tinies pieces. The volcanic larva turned into paradise.

Being on this beach made me realize this, beautiful things often come from brokenness. We tend to see beauty in its final form easily forgetting its former state or the process it went through to become something worthy of our admiration. It’s true, I don’t remember the name of the beach we spent so many days on, but it doesn’t matter because what I took from it wasn’t a name, it was a memory, it was a life lesson, pain is not without purpose. This beach enchanted me with its unusual and unique warmth even while a cool breeze blew, with its glassy waters, even though sharp coral reefs hid beneath the surface, with its guardian like rocks and its quiet secluded nature even though at one time when larva spewed from mountaintops it was deafening. I’ll never forget the sound of the waves or how everyone stopped to watch the last 5 minutes of the sun setting. This is the impact of beauty regardless of names and dates and perfection.