A Touching Tale of Random Creativity

Now follow this if you can. My daughter-in-law's sister's husband's sister lives in Petersburg, Alaska. On a recent trip there Carla met me on the rustic dock with her seventeen-year-old son Ben, who used a laptop to show me photographs he's taken depicting the life of a commercial fishing family. We only had an hour or so to visit, but we made the most of it while sitting beneath a graying sky, breathing in the brisk salt air.

When Carla learned I am a hypnotherapist, she was as excited about that as I was about Ben's impressive pictures of Alaska. She had been reading about clinical hypnosis and wishing she could use it to deal with some multilayered issues. "E-mail me," I said as we hugged goodbye. "Tell me what's going on, I'll get back to you if I have questions, then I'll record a session for you and send it on a CD." She did and I did, assuring her she had already paid for my services with the mouthwatering home-smoked salmon she gave us, wrapped for travel.

That was three months ago. Other than hearing from her how much she appreciated my help, we lost touch until she e-mailed a few days ago saying she had mailed a package to me. "A random piece of creativity," she called the gift she was sending. I was like a kid waiting for Christmas, and especially excited because part of the problem addressed on her personalized CD was her sense of sorrow over the fading away of her creative nature. Along with the recorded session I tailored from the information she sent, I had included subliminal suggestions specifically to help revive her creativity.

In the box I found Styrofoam beans protecting another box, in which there was an interestingly shaped shiny clear glass bottle... partially filled with the course black sand found on the shores of Petersburg. In the sand there were tiny treasures Carla had collected while beach combing -- several seashells, a tiny piece of coral, part of a young crab's leg shell, the red cap off a little tube 0f some sort, a little girl's pink hair clip, a tiny toy, a goldish ring, a piece of colored glass, and so on. Most importantly, there was a green marble. Marbles are rare finds, Carla's note told me, and she had come across this one on September 8th, the day my newest granddaughter was born. It's olive-green color made her think of the baby -- named Olivia. Carla had baked the sand to dry and sterilize it, and thought how much enjoyment I would have discovering the marble for myself each time I turned the bottle (sealed with a button and dangling bead) this way and that to expose the significant little greeen treasure that rolls around hidden in the dark sand.

Wow.

The result of Carla's "random creativity" now sits on the windowsill of my kitchen (coincidentally decorated in an Alaskan theme). Sunlight shines in through the subtly decorated bottle daily, reminding me to take a moment to play. And I do, smiling each time I find there what I'm looking for, fantasizing about how much fun it will be to share the experience with my little Olivia when she is old enough.

In the package from Carla was also a page she had composed entitled, "Tides." The first paragraph reads, "Many people know some basic types of tides; there are spring tides and neap tides and lunar tides. They know of high tides and low tides, flood tides and ebb tides, and some even have met a riptide or two. At certain times in the summer come the krill tides, when millions of tiny krill wash up on the beach. They don't make the news the way a whale would that washes up. I've never actually seen a whale tide, but I am among the lucky few who have seen the button and decorative cap tides, the hair clip and comb tides, the little plastic toy tides, and sometimes the very rare marble tide."

Wow again.

What else can I say, other than what a pleasure it was to meet this special lady, how privileged I feel to have played a small part in her life, how impressed I am by her random creativity, how grateful I am for her thoughtfulness and sensitivity, and how touched I am by the unique and very meaningful gift she has sent.