We all carry places inside us

June 07, 2026

When I think about some of my favorite memories throughout my life, the ocean is almost always there somewhere.

Childhood trips to Florida, searching for sand dollars and watching horseshoe crabs move through the shallows. Days spent on the beach outside my home in Maui, where the rhythm of the water became part of daily life. Diving in different parts of the world and feeling that strange, weightless wonder that comes from being surrounded by blue. Long evenings in Greece, sitting at tavernas with family and friends, sharing food, laughter, and that particular kind of happiness that seems to happen when the sea is nearby.

I don’t think I understood it when I was younger, but I was always collecting pieces of those places.

Shells. Bits of coral. Smooth stones. Tiny fragments that felt too beautiful to leave behind.

As a child, I would gather them up and often string one or two onto a cord to wear. Nothing fancy, just some small treasure I had found and wanted to keep close. And honestly, not much has changed. I still collect shells, stones, and little bits of the natural world with the same curiosity I had then. I still bring them home, display them, study them, and sometimes, when the right one speaks, turn them into something wearable.

So it feels both ironic and sometimes downright tragic that I’ve been living in the Midwest for nearly 30 years now.

I always thought I would move back to Hawaii. I argued with that reality for a long time. I stomped my feet internally, and probably externally too, because subtlety has never been my strongest life skill. But life had other plans, as it so often does. Family, timing, responsibilities, roots, love, all the things that slowly shape a life even when they don’t follow the map we thought we were carrying.

And yet, the ocean never really left me.

It shows up again and again in my work. Sometimes literally, through natural shells, pearls, soft sandy colors, and sunset hues that make me think of the last light hanging over the water. Other times it appears in a less obvious way, like a watery aquamarine with a wispy green ribbon inclusion that seems to move inside the stone, or a pearl with an uneven surface that feels shaped by something deeper than perfection.

I think that’s part of what I love so much about working with natural materials. They hold memory in their own way. A shell carries the story of the water. A pearl holds the slow work of time. A stone keeps record of pressure, movement, minerals, and change. These materials have already lived before they ever reach my bench.

When I create with them, I’m not trying to erase that history. I’m trying to honor it.

Whether it’s a stone I’ve chosen with care or a shell I picked up along the beach, I’m responding to the feeling it gives me. The place it brings me back to. The memory it stirs. The small pull that says, this matters, even if I don’t have perfect words for why.

That’s one of the reasons jewelry has always felt like more than adornment to me. It can become a touchstone. Something that rests against the body and carries meaning. A piece can bring us back to a place we loved, a season of life, a version of ourselves we’re still connected to, or a feeling we don’t want to lose.

Maybe that’s why I’m still drawn to shells after all these years. They feel like small keepsakes from another life, another place, another version of myself who still lives somewhere close to the surface.

Maybe for you it’s the ocean too. Or maybe it’s a lake, a garden, a childhood home, a trip you still think about, or a person whose presence stays with you in unexpected ways.

I think we all carry places inside us.

And sometimes, if we’re lucky, we find small ways to keep them close.

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