Our love of shells ties us together
To the editor:
For years I attended the Sanibel Shell Show. Not in the traditional sense, but virtually, via the news media, internet and social media posts. I was content and resigned to attending the show looking at someone else’s photos. Those photos brought me amazing joy and excitement. For years I would be swiping to refresh and searching my browser, just looking to drink in any new post and photos showing the amazing exhibits, the artists and the crowds, minute by minute. I would always say, ” … next year I’ll go for sure.” But next year never came due to one reason or another.
As frequent visitors to Sanibel for close to 20 years, my family and I fostered a love and appreciation for this special place which we believed what heaven would look like once we cross through the gates. We were blessed to have family members generously share their on-island home with us for many years. There were also rental property owners that knew us by name, wait staff who knew our orders before we did and shop owners who we now call friends, all more welcoming than the next. Yes, Sanibel was our heaven on earth.
Retiring young was a benefit to our family and we always knew Southwest Florida would be our end game. A place where we could live the second halves of our lives and become a part of a community that held such a special place in our hearts.
Last summer I hit the ground running once we relocated. Applied for a few part-time jobs, if only to immerse myself in the community and give back to its residents as best I could since Sanibel had done so much for my family over the years. I am blessed to now work for the city of Sanibel, BIG ARTS and the Bailey-Matthews National Shell Museum & Aquarium. All on my Sanibel vision board.
We joined the Sanibel-Captiva Shell Club as a family and I gleefully checked off the box “yes I would love to volunteer.” No sooner did I check off that box, I found my services were now focused on social media and marketing for the Sanibel Shell Show. Vision board complete.
I soon learned that the show was off island for 2024 due to an uncertain building repair timeline, no discouraging thanks to Hurricane Ian. Nonetheless I was grateful to see first hand the resilience of the islanders and the club to make sure that the “Super Bowl of Shells” wasn’t canceled for a second year in a row. Little did I realize, by joining the club and taking on the volunteer responsibilities for the show, I was some how now part of an invisible line in the sand and oddly, and more disappointingly, found myself being banned and blocked on social media by pages, groups and from people I didn’t even know, or who knew me. Just because I picked a side? Was joining a club really picking a side? What was happening here? Quite discouraging considering this wasn’t the type of people I knew to reside on Sanibel and who welcomed us so graciously year after year. But I turned that negative into a positive and focused on making this show, the first show I would ever be attending in person, well publicized and successful by putting all of my talent behind my volunteer role.
On March 7, on the eve of the show, I found myself alone in the massive ballroom of the Marriott Sanibel Harbour Resort & Spa. Just me and some 300 exhibits. Just me, alone with my camera. Then it hit me how full circle a moment like that was. A wave of emotion rode over me as if I found my first junonia. For years I attended this show on the other side of someone else’s camera. And now, in 2024 it was me, photographing and posting for thousands of virtual attendees to see, who may never have the opportunity to be there ever, in person. Full circle.
I am grateful to have had the opportunity to work shoulder to shoulder with Linda Graves Arnold, chairwoman of the show this year, as well as the entire club. Her determination to pull together an amazing show all while living in a half repaired, Ian-devastated home was the true definition of Sanibel resiliency. The amount of work that went into this year’s event was shell-mazing (you knew I’d have to get a pun in here). Even for me, someone with vast event production experience, this show was just phenomenal.
Throughout the weekend I realized it shouldn’t be about sides … but more so about tides. They come, they go, but they’re always there. Sometimes damaging, sometimes harmless. But almost always they bring to us what ties us all together … our love of shells.
The beach is wide and vast enough for us all to stand on and seek out what makes us happy. Providing an event, or events, that educate, entertain and celebrate our common love for Sanibel and shells gives us all a platform to appreciate some of the greatest gifts Mother Earth has given to all of us. The city of Sanibel and its residents, its shells and its beaches, all shone brightly that recent weekend for the world to see. The shells will remain, our footprints in the sand will fade with the tides. Tread lightly and with always step with grace knowing that you are truly blessed to live in heaven on earth.
Denise Dillon
Cape Coral