She Sells Seashells / Hoar Frost

It was the last of the ultra-cold mornings for a while, and I was out in my element, making frozen bubble pictures. The light was good, the wind was calm. The temperature started out around 7 degrees F, and warmed all the way up to 10 or 12 by the time I was finished.

I'd bought some new el cheapo dish detergent at the Dollar Tree that has more blue tones in it, and I mixed that into my existing tealy colored bubble mix, added a bit of corn syrup. A gentle stir, and I went and sat the mix out on the front porch to chill, as I got dressed to go outside myself.

As I headed into the backyard to do my bubbles, I noticed that there were frost crystals in every twig, branch, and tree top, and I could see hints of silver-gray as I looked up toward Tow Hill: HOAR FROST!!!!

I didn't know if I'd get a chance to run up the road a bit to see the hoar frost before it left us (and in the end, I didn't), so I snapped a few pictures through the trees. You may see one in the extras. Hoar frost is one of the most beautiful, ephemeral, and difficult to photograph of the cold-weather phenomena. The sparkles in the bokeh were out of this world!

A friend of mine had sent some Christmas greens and red berries as a gift, back in early December around my birthday. They are starting to fade and smell funny. So I decided it was time for them to go out. But first, I'd use them for making bubbles on, and I did, and it went very well.

As I finished my little project with my friend's greens, I decided it was almost time to wrap it up and go in. My fingers were freezing, everything was sticky sticky sticky, and I had never even gotten a chance to drink my tea.

So I decided to go with one last quick-simple-bubble adventure. I moved the arrangement off to the side, and blew bubbles straight onto the snow on top of my stump slices. Well, glory, hallelujah, it gave me the most gorgeous bubbles of the whole morning!

As I watched, the frost crystals grew, and the patterns they made looked like . . . okay, are you ready? . . . SEASHELLS growing inside my bubbles! Yes, you know that pearly part of the seashell, when you look into it? That is exactly what I got!

Now, I have not talked about it for a while, there have been so many losses since then. But my big sister Barb and I used to go to the beach together. She passed on to the Next Place a few years ago and I have not been to the beach since. I long to go, but I can't imagine being there without her.

It is true that the ones who leave us leave big holes in our hearts and in our lives. It is also true that the memories of those individuals and the times we spent together can be called upon to keep our hearts warm when we need them.

I believe my sister sent me this precious gift of memory on one of the coldest of all of the winter mornings: a seashell, to remind me of the ocean, and all of our happy adventures by the seashore. I accept this gift, with surprise and with gratitude. And I pass it on by sharing it here. 

Here is the great gift - and miracle - of this winter's morning: seashells made of ice crystals, a hologram born out of love and frost fire on a snow-covered central Pennsylvania landscape. Yes, there is glory in the frost, glory in the snow.

I have two photos so here are two songs. For the image above, I've got Robert Plant and Tori Amos, with Down By the Seaside. For the sparkling hoar frost in the extras, I've got Dolly Parton covering Collective Soul, with Shine.

As always, here is a link to my canonical list of frozen bubble tips.