But I do own a conch shell. My parents brought one home from their Bermuda honeymoon, and it sat on a book shelf in our house my entire life. As kids, we would always put the shell up to our ears so we could hear the ocean.

When I graduated from college and moved to Dallas in 1991, I was pleased to find that the beautiful new Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center seemed inspired by a conch shell. The pink marble walls curve around, leading patrons into the depths of the shell, following that mystical sound. On the inside, the colors are rich browns, velvety smooth, warm and welcoming like the meat of the conch.

Then the year before I got married, I read Tom Robbins’s Skinny Legs and All, and I worshiped his conch shell as she was meant to be worshiped. So on our honeymoon cruise to the Bahamas, the trip was not complete until we bought a conch shell of our own. The shell holds a special place in my home, the central figure of a tableau with men and little boys dancing around it.

It’s tasteful. Really.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 11th, 2007 at 10:49 pm and is filed under meanderings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.