Act One, Take One
Oooh, you should’a been there. The goosebumps mounded (yep, double high) as I paid 49 cents for an Easter bunny tin containing what I thought were porcelain bisque beads. I was at one of my favorite haunts, the Goodwill store, where I have scored so many treasures. Those good stuff things summon me from within the rubble of odds and ends in tables full of thrown away things with missing parts or banged up bodies; no longer wanted. 
Abandoned and waiting for the right person to come along and love them. Well anyway, I was really strung out and beady-eyed about this particular find.
One Act Only, Take Two
I discovered a picture similar to my little beady find and to my amazement discovered that they are actually Sea Urchin spines. Y…e…t… I was half right. They have been used as “beads.”
Enter Stage Right
The photo of a necklace of Sea Urchin spines by Star of the East, Etsy created by Ester and Estella (mother and daughter) in Marmaris, Turkey.
Sea Urchin spines. I was soooo sure they were of clay. I was soooo wrong about them. Fade to dark.
Epilogue
They are very smooth and lightweight. There are no two alike. One day soon, I am sure they will speak to me and insist that I get busy providing a proper piece from which they will be admired with ooohs and aaaaahs, tings, tangs and walla wa…
Fast Forward to Today
I’d like to thank my family for their support, my dear friends, even though they refused to go shopping with me to the Goodwill (perhaps mediocre friends), and most of all to the artists at Etsy who let me know that it is okay to fall in love with bead thingies and spiny urchin bits and there is life after being misunderstood, mistaken and… mystified by nature! And the spines? They like me! They reeeealy like me!
Epilogue
Pitiful Post Script:
It’s weeks later and I cannot find the spines. I put them away for safe keeping donchaknow.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
The spines are in the hall closet.
Hey!! I go to the Goodwill with you…when I’m there
Baby Sis
Hey, you didn’t mention you liked to hang out at Goodwill! Or about sea urchin spines. I see those in one of your paintings. The spines that came up from the slough…..marching up the levee into the house……and….. CC just created a bracelet of fire clay that has an elastic expansion joint in it so she can get it on over arthritic fingers and hands. Neat!
I like what you’re doing, school, white board, sea urchins, whatever, it’s all interesting!
Bye!