Pearls

Hey, Mom,

     Huh?

New Beginnings starts at seven.

     Seven, as in twenty minutes from now, seven?

Yeah. You have to wear a dress.

I knew that. Really, I did.

So I pin my hair up–with a ballpoint pen–and I put on a skirt that matches my shirt. I sit there in the chapel with my fourteen year old and the program lasts no more than twenty minutes. Concision at its best. I'm seriously impressed.

The president gives a short analogy relating the formation of pearls to the formation of a girl's character, and then she introduces the activity portion of the evening.

Oysters.

I kid you not–they imported oysters from Japan. One for every young woman. The oysters smelled like ninth-grade biology and didn't look anything special, but they held a promise. Those girls pried and wrenched and ewwed and bloodied their fingers and finally ahhhhhed as every one of them found a pearl. White and cream and every shade of pink; silver and black and navy blue. Amazing. 

New beginnings.

I sat here this morning bogged down in concern and I saw again those pearls emerging from the muck. Those girls with their gooey, bloody hands discovering pearls in unlikely places, rinsing them off and placing them in silver, hinged pendants and wearing them over their hearts.  

I took a deep breath and I was okay.

Because I have to believe that no matter how long it takes or what currents I travel–I have to believe there's whopper of a pearl forming somewhere deep here. 

And who knows what it'll look like? 

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