"One cannot collect all the beautiful shells on the beach. One can collect only a few, and they are more beautiful if they are few."

~ Anne Morrow Lindbergh ~

And how true it is…whether referring to shells or all of the other of life’s experiences. Anne Lindbergh’s phrase has floated to the surface and onto the beach of my mind frequently since I read it on Friday. Life’s daily living has kept me from escaping to the beach of my imagination where I might walk the sands of solitude so tempting to those who write. As the ideas roll like the waves of the sea and deposit the shells of words and ideas,I sometimes need just to escape that I might capture them while they are still fresh. But finally it is time. I can express all those “shells” of thought I have had to neglect all weekend.

Although my ideas have been beautiful and varied, one shell keeps rolling in on my thought waves - the exquisite shell of friendship. In one lifetime, we experience and acknowledge many people as our friends, but “one can collect only a few, and they are more beautiful if they are few.” All may be beautiful, but only a few become those truly amazing people we take home to treasure.

These are the relationships that endure through every birth, every death, every splendid event and every hateful experience we may have between the births and deaths. It is this person (as it has been said by someone) “who know all there is about us and loves us anyway.” This is that person I can call day or night and know he/she (gender isn’t an issue) will share whatever emotion I am subject to at the moment. Treasured friend may not even understand what I am experiencing, but still will share emotion/experience with me.

Anyone who “collects” is truly blessed if in a lifetime you “collect” two or three true friends. Acquaintances, even very close acquaintances, are many and often beautiful, but the word friend is saved for those beautiful people that we collect as treasures along the edges of the sea of our life. As I write, I know (in my heart and from almost 70 years of living) that they are few, but precious. My wish for you as you read this week’s thought is that you have been reminded of the few “beautiful” people who are a part of your treasure.

And if you are blessed beyond measure you may be married to one of those treasured friends! I am.