She picks sea shells by the sea shore

In an interview with Anita Moorjani that I was listening to, she says that to get in touch with who you really are, ask yourself the following questions: "What do I like? What do I like doing? What makes me happy? What brings me joy? What makes me tick? What makes me feel alive?"

 

Becoming Bess is going to be a journal of me figuring out the answers to these questions.

One of our newest habits is picking up shells and sea stones from the beach. They strike me with their various color, ranging from blues and violets, a hundred shades of grey, to even greenish, orange or red shells.Their textures run from smooth as silk to ridged and jagged. And patterns, oh, the patterns, the stripes, the spirals and the mixing of colors. I find their natural beauty and their uniqueness breathtaking. Shells I once would have thought not good enough, ones with holes or pieces of once larger shells now catch my eye. The patterns revealed from once being broken now reveal such intricate beauty. And the smoothing effect of being constantly tossed by the waves lends a certain grace to their being.
I guess a part of me relates to these shells. (Which is very much a huge part of being Bess - finding my role in whatever movie or surrounding I am in to relate to.) Now at 31 with a bit more life experience under my belt, I sometimes feel like I'm still being tossed back and forth in the crashing tide. But at the same time, I can understand better that it is all part of the process.

 

“It's only when caterpillarness is done that one becomes a butterfly. That again is part of this paradox. You cannot rip away caterpillarness. The whole trip occurs in an unfolding process of which we have no control.”
― Ram Dass, Be Here Now

Becoming Bess is a tribute to the beauty, laughter, and lessons learned in my life as I am on my quest of being the truest to myself, while like a shell being tossed in the tide or the caterpillar in its catipillarness I journey on.