What’s better than finding a piece of cobalt blue sea glass on the beach? Your five-year old finding a piece of cobalt blue sea glass on the beach.

The shrieks of delight and enthusiasm from my daughter still echo in that happy place in my brain where good memories are filed away for keeps.

She found it a couple of weeks ago under a driftwood log.

“Look what I found mom!!!” she announced, holding up the piece as if it were the Devil’s Eye Diamond from The Rescuers.

Maddie knows that big chunks of cobalt blue sea glass are hard to come by – especially ones with words on them.

Today I did some research on the piece. I simply plunked in “A. J + cobalt blue bottle” into Google, and presto-mundo (the internet really is magic!) – there it was: a Laxol bottle.

Yes, it’s a laxative. And likely more than 100 years old. My daughter will get a serious kick of these two facts.

The bottle was from A. J. White (Andrew Judson White), New York. A. J. was  a proprietary medicine maker in New York City who teamed up with the Shakers in New York to produce medicines using botanical ingredients supplied by the Shakers. In 1957, A. J. White was purchased by Smith, Kline and French Laboratories.

You know you’ve got it bad when a laxative bottle (or piece of it) turns your crank.

I have a special fondness for sea glass with words. It’s like I’ve found a clue. Or sometimes it’s a message from the Great Beyond.

Chase. What am I chasing?

I’m chasing something. With fierce determination.

Freedom. That’s why there are flames coming out of my heels and my reflection is a blur. I don’t relax. I chase.

But the biggest irony of all is that in my quest for freedom, I have given up so much freedom. The freedom to read novels in the evening and paint on Saturdays. The freedom to write poetry late into the night. The freedom to do nothing.

No time for that.

But there is still time for sea glass.

Photo:  Cobalt blue sea glass found on north shore of Lake Erie. By Christina Friedrichsen.