Mermaid's tears

I love to beachcomb.
And I love to find beachglass, it's a fun treasure hunt while you get to enjoy the invigorating beauty of the seashore. And what better beaches to comb than those pristine sands of the Hamptons?
Some call it 'beachgrass', some 'seagulls', and some call it by the most romantic of names, 'mermaid's tears'.
Here's how the legend goes:
Mermaids could change the mighty course of nature, but were forbidden to do so by Neptune, the stern watchful god of the sea.
One dark, storm-ravaged night, with sails ripping and masts cracking, a schooner fought to find safety in a rocky cove. The ship was familiar to the mermaid who swam along its side...she had weathered many crossing with the ship and its captain. As the ship heeled in the violent wind, the captain lost his hold on the wheel, tumbling perilously close to the raging sea. In an instant, the mermaid calmed the wind and tamed the waves, changing the course of nature and saving the life of a man she had grown to love from afar.
For her impetuous act, Neptune banished the sobbing mermaid to the ocean's depths, condemning her for eternity never to surface or swim with the ships again. To this day, her gleaming tears wash up on the beaches as sea glass...crystalline treasures in magic sea colors, an eternal reminder of true love.

I've collected beachglass for almost 25 years now, but my collection is still a modest one (I think) because the beaches out here are almost totally void of debris...Hamptonites are too clean! When I used to summer on the Jersey shore and up in Maine in the early and mid-90's I found a lot more. I'm lucky to find one or two pieces a Summer now. I keep it in a shadow box on a shelf with an old picture I love of my sister and myself when we were kids. We're beach combing in early Spring on a beach in Galveston, Texas, this must be from around 1969 or 1970.

I also keep a few pieces in a little jar I dug up in my backyard years ago. It sits on the sill in my bathroom above the sink (that's the outdoor shower thru the window).

It's the color that I find the most attractive, the watery greens and pale blues...the colors of the ocean. Of course one of the rarest finds is the deep blue pieces. I treasure those the most. Each piece is a fond memory of long contemplative walks by the water, waves lapping at your feet, what could be more relaxing?