Lessons of Impermanence
What losing a special necklace on the rock beaches of Nice taught me about life.
Through a few strokes of luck and a lot of arm twisting, my best friend and I spent two weeks in Europe with her mom and her mom’s best friend the summer between my sophomore and junior years of high school. Over 25 years later, I still have a lot to say about this trip. It was magical and honestly well outside of my family's means, (I used my entire life savings up until that point for the trip) and my parents only very reluctantly let me go.
I come from a lower-middle-class family, and while I firmly believe that everyone should be able to experience traveling abroad, this was a privilege that made me feel like I had won the lottery. This trip helped me confirm who I was in the world and how I wanted to show up in it. It gave me a glimpse of just how much bigger the world was than I had ever imagined. This trip also cemented my love of France and my deep connection with Paris.
Much of this trip is still a bright memory in my mind, but something happened in Nice that I still think about all these years later.
When I was in the 8th grade, a special older neighbor, Helen Kaughman, was my confirmation sponsor. She gave me the most beautiful cross necklace. I wore it every day from confirmation in 8th grade until this trip to France.
On that trip to France we had spent a day sunbathing on the rock beaches of Nice and swimming in the Mediterranean sea (my first experience swimming in salt water). We only had a few days in Nice and the next day we were set to take the train to Paris. I decided I wanted to spend that morning on the beach instead of shopping with the rest of my group. We set our meeting time at the train station and I promised I’d meet them there.
I went down to the beach, laid out my towel, took off my special necklace, and put it on the corner of my towel. Then, I stretched out to enjoy the sun, the sea, and people-watching. After a while, I realized I needed to hurry up and get to the train station. So I started packing up my bag shook out my towel, and rushed off to the station. Then standing at the train station with my companions I casually took my right hand to my sternum to play with my necklace as I so often did, only to realize that when I had carelessly shaken out my towel, I shook the necklace off and had left it somewhere on that rocky beach.
Even though it had been an extremely sentimental necklace, I knew we didn’t have time to go back and look for it and wasn’t sure I’d be able to find it in all of those rocks even if I did go back to look. The train pulled in we boarded and I left a little part of me on that beach. To pacify myself I imagined some young little girl finding it and loving it and wearing it with as my love as I had.
Some people believe everything happens for a reason. I’m not sure if I believe that or not, but I’ve always wanted this story to have a grander meaning, something I could wrap up in a bow. How could I have been so careless I wonder? I remember a fleeting thought when I took the necklace off that it might be a bad idea. Was this incident a lesson to trust my instincts or a lesson in impermanence? It certainly taught me a bit of both.
For days, weeks, and months, even after I lost the necklace, I would absentmindedly touch my sternum, looking for the necklace only to remember that moment on the beach of Nice, an odd reminder of a beautiful trip that taught me so much about the world and about me.
That trip to France happened around this time in June, as the days were nearing their longest. Now I find myself wanting to grasp onto the light, not wanting us to reach the summer solstice because it means we’ll then start inching back towards the darkness of winter. And I think about that necklace and remember that impermanence is just a part of life and I can stop grasping for things I can’t control and embrace the light while it’s here.
Yet, impermanence works both ways. Yes, there are beautiful stretches we want to hold onto that will slip away like the tide, but it’s comforting to remember that nothing can last forever. If I’m going through a rough patch in my business, or a difficult time in a relationship, or am waiting to find out if the potential new coaching client will commit to the process or the art collector will purchase the pieces, the lesson of this necklace comes to mind. I didn’t need to grasp anything too tightly, and I didn’t need to be in a rush to push it away. Things, people, and situations come and go, and that’s what I can place my trust in.