Memory of a Starfish
By Sonya Spillmann
@sonyaspillmann
Cool spring air cuts through my jacket, winter’s lingering tendrils sneak down past my neck. In the golden kiss of dawn, I walk alone on a beach. My arms lift in what might be called praise, a deep breath, or worship. Then I turn back towards the house, to my waking family, tracing my wave-erased steps.
Morning light reflects off receding waves, like bolts of yellow silk unraveling into the surf. As far as I can see, sun caresses sand, slick, smooth, iridescent like oil.
Except there.
What is that? A shell? An animal?
Waves lap over the flat shape, unmoving with each lick. I walk closer, then see—then gasp, then laugh!—a starfish. A starfish!
I have walked beaches for as long as I can remember. From the age when I’d stand at the ocean’s edge, scared, exhilarated, and yell, “Come on big water!” till now, a woman with four growing children, who rents the house in her own name. And never once, not once, have I seen a starfish washed up on shore.
I pick it up, smiling. Five arms point out like sticks. I can’t wait to show the kids.
But just as quickly as the joy came, the awe, the wonder—for that’s really what it was—in pushed fear. A heart beat. A quick breath. A head snapped up to look around. Who’s here? Who knows? Who sees? From whom can I ask permission? But not one other soul walks this beach with me.
I’m not so afraid to take the starfish home as I’m all of a sudden very concerned I shouldn’t. Am I allowed? Is starfish stealing unlawful?
Then closer to my heart, more urgent and distressing—could it still be alive?
A story flashes through my mind: a boy walks onto a beach. It’s covered with countless starfish washed ashore. He picks one up and throws it back into the water. He does the same to another. And another. And another. But the beach looks unchanged. A person approaches the boy and says, “You can’t possibly save all these starfish. What you’re doing doesn’t matter.” The boy picks up another starfish, tosses it into the ocean and replies, “It matters to that one.”
I hold the starfish in my hand. I held it. I had it. But I cannot stand the thought of risking its life. The thought alone pains me. I take a picture, like proof. Then I throw it, as if it’s a stone to be skipped, side armed, back into the open mouth of the ocean.
Instantly, immediately, I regret my decision. It had to be dead. It had to be. Also, I have my phone. When I search every little thing (Can squirrels jump vertically? Why do onions make you cry? Do whales sleep?) what in heaven’s name possessed me to not look this up?
How do you know if a starfish is dead?
I cannot say why I felt such urgency, what it was that compelled me to throw it back so quickly.
I walk back to the house, kick off my sandy shoes. In the kitchen I pour a cup of coffee. “I found a starfish on my walk,” I announce to my kids and husband.
“Where is it?”
“Let me see it!”
“Cool!”
“But I threw it back.”
“Awwwwww!”
“Moooooom!”
“Whyyyy?”
The pull of disappointment rubs down my neck, from the base of my jaw to my throat. “I thought it might still be alive,” I say in explanation.
“It wouldn’t have washed up if it were alive,” my husband says, confirming my hunch.
“I thought maybe—” I start. “I didn’t know—” “I wasn’t sure—” and I can’t shake the unease running up and down my arms, desire pooling at my wrists, dancing over my skin like pins and needles on fire. A want of that beautiful creature settles deep into my chest. But the fear of causing it harm grates hard over my regret.
I pull out my phone, find the picture. “Here, look.”
“That would have been cool,” my youngest son says.
***
The first time I saw a circular halo—a rainbow encircling the sun—was the summer after my mom died. My brother, sister, dad and I went to the beach a few weeks after her funeral. It wasn’t the same beach we went to with her—we stayed somewhere new, somewhere without physical memories of us all together. But it was on the same coast, in the same state. Same ocean. Same sand. Same sun.
I don’t know if we were eating lunch or why the four of us, it used to be five, were so close together, but one of us looked up and saw the rainbow. A perfect circle.
A woman walked by. Seeing us, she stopped, put her hand to her forehead, turned and looked up. After a moment she said something like, “I’ve never seen that before.”
“Neither have we,” my dad said and I couldn’t tell if he was also fighting back tears. Then he bent over, digging in our beach bag for his camera. He put sunglasses over the lens, pointed it at the sun, and tried to capture the image on film. Tried to give us something to hold, to look at. A memory of a memory to keep alive.
The woman shook her head a little, as if in disbelief. She stood there, eyes up. Then she looked at us, smiled, and I can’t help but wonder if, before she walked on, noted someone was missing. Or if she thought we looked incomplete. Lost. Disoriented. I wonder if she could smell the grief radiating off our skin like the searing heat of the sun.
And I wonder if she saw that ring in the sky and also thought it was a sign from a mother to her family? Did it, too, remind her of a promise?
***
I wake early the next morning to again welcome the sun. Then I walk and keep (I can’t help but keep) my eyes down. Down, down, down. On the sand. Scanning, searching. Waiting, wishing.
It doesn’t matter that odds tell me it’s unlikely. I am expectant.
Maybe it will be the same one? Or a different one. Doesn’t it seem possible? Wouldn’t another starfish be some sort of confirmation? A sign? As if God were sending me a message, a consolation prize?
***
Each morning I return to the water’s edge. The salt wind kisses my lips, its chill whips in my hair. Dolphins jump and slide through the waves. Later in the day, my kids throw frisbees and lacrosse balls. They read, dig, and rest. All the while I wait. My longing is constant, like the tide. A force, the push and pull, that moves time and starfish further and further away.
***
“Look up!”
The six of us sit close to each other and I point up. A half rainbow—a circumzenithal arc—sits under the sun like a smile. Unlike normal rainbows formed by raindrops, this arc (like the circular halo) forms through clouds —when light refracts through crystals of ice.
“Oh, yeah!”
“Cool!”
“Where is it?” one child asks, unable to see the phenomenon through her sunglasses.
I point up, block the sun with my hand. And as we all turn to look, like a vision of my past reenacted, I am not surprised when tears form at the edges of my eyes. Loss and hope so often mingle with salt water. My children don’t know, and I doubt my husband even knows. But it feels like I’ve been here before.
Holding a memory of a memory.
***
I cannot stop thinking about the starfish. Why was it there? Why on the morning I was in that spot? How did no one else find it first?
On our last full day at the beach, with the weather still cool, my husband suggests a family walk. “A short one” that takes two hours of our morning. I walk with the kids, hold hands with Chris, all the while holding anticipation like an eggshell. But no starfish.
Then on our last morning, a few hours before we leave, I walk to the beach again. I look left, right, but all I see is sand, rays of the rising sun, and the constant crashing ocean. I scan the surf, squint into the distance. I will a starfish to be there. I hope. I secretly pray, I do everything short of making some cosmic bargain. If you give me starfish I’ll …
Why did I throw it back? Why?
On our walk yesterday, I told my oldest daughter, “It still really bothers me that I threw it back.” I knew it was likely dead. And if I wanted it so badly, why did I make that choice? And maybe more than anything, why can’t I be okay with my decision?
“I’m sad I didn’t keep it,” I finally say. “And I’m frustrated. Disappointed,” I look out at the horizon. I turn to look at her, unable to explain why it feels so much like loss. But I also need to say, and feel compelled to tell her. A realization, “I was motivated by compassion.”
***
The story is this: I found a starfish. I had it once, if only for a moment. I wish I had her still, kept her close. But I didn’t. I couldn’t. Instead, I have a memory. And a picture. And ultimately, a promise.
Words and photo by Sonya Spillmann.