Synaptic

The essay is a meditation on both personal and public history. I was simply impressed at the range of Rhiley’s connections between her time studying abroad and her previous life as a collector of “curiosities.”

-Keith Ratzlaff

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Whitewashed and small, the chapel springs from its island like some great, rare block of salt. It is only an hour before sunset, so the late light is beginning to drip between the clouds around us. Great beams of it drop down into the sea, streaming from their banks and the gulls are, for once, quiet. Ahead, the rest of my group clambers over algae-covered rocks. They are aiming for the small staircase, steps covered in seaweed, cut into the island’s concrete retaining wall. The church, St. Cwyfan’s, can only be reached at low-tide, unless you have a boat. On the way here, my program director, Tecwyn, had to stop by the post office to fetch the key to the front door, left there for him by the pastor. From there, we’d driven half an hour through Anglesey, down small back roads, turning past dilapidated stone walls and, I suspect at points, using sheep as landmarks.

Right now, my eyes are darting from the beginning sunset, to the church, to my feet. I’m beachcombing and as I walk, my pockets ripen with shells. Here is a mussel, blue lean oval, and there, a razor clam, long and slick. Everywhere are an infinite number of small white cones of shells, worn from years of battering the coast. These are some of my favorites, for even they have forgotten their story. Were they great or small? Strong or weak? Colorful or white as sun-bleached bone? Neither of us knows. I also find tightly rolled snail shells, banded with pale pinks and blues. I’ve found these on other beaches, but here they seem brighter, smaller, more fragile. I start out counting them as they drop into my pockets—2, 3, 4—but gratefully forget the number by the time I reach the island.

When it was first founded, St. Cwyfan’s was joined to Anglesey by a thin land bridge. However, over time, this bridge eroded and the parish became what is today known as the Church in the Sea. Each year, a few services, along with a smattering of weddings and christenings, are held in the 900 year old chapel. Local men and women help to maintain the whitewash on the outside walls, first applied in the 17th century when the church was restored to its current state. Atop its slate roof sits a small, empty belfry. The whole building is about as large as my living room at home. Its windows are small and simple, their frames gently sagging. Ahead of me, Tecwyn has left its door unlocked and opened. I duck inside.

Inside, a hodgepodge of well-worn wooden chairs faces the altar. The stone floor is streaked with grooves of sand and the roof is supported by wooden beams, the color of driftwood and sagging ever-so-slightly. Small collections of rocks and shells adorn the windows and altar. They are piled into pyramids and concentric circles, arranged by careful hands. Whose careful hands? A priest’s, a pilgrim’s, a mother’s? Is it a ritual, one rock set down for every prayer? An offering? A symbol? I can’t imagine that it’s just for decoration. I want it to mean something more.

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When I was a child, my mother would give me a small bucket when we went to Saylorville Lake. I would pick up chunks of limestone and sandstone and shale, opaque pieces of quartz and sparkling granite. Then, of course, I didn’t know their names. I knew only that they were pretty and that was more than enough for me. My mother, a teacher, would have me describe them as I picked them up — smooth, sparkle, heavy, small, glassy, rough— each rock forming an identity as I dropped them in.

As soon as I got home, I would run to the balcony and pour the bucket out, some of the smaller rocks inevitability falling between boards. I’d rush into the kitchen to fill up a bowl with water and run back out with it again, shirt soaked by the time I made it to the balcony. Outside, I’d drop each rock, carefully, one at a time, into the bowl. I had learned that rocks took on a new form underwater. Their colors would deepen and textures heighten, like my own hair when I lay down on the floor of the swimming pool, wrapping around me, undulating and foreign. Here, in the water, I would name the rocks. A round, pink pebble became Zoe. A crooked piece of gravel was Gus. It was a baptism, like when I’d watched my mother dipped into a deep tub at the local church, coming up smiling. Swimming for Jesus. Being reborn.

When everyone had had their name and their bath, the rocks would be lined up to dry on the balcony’s boards. I ordered them by how beautiful I thought they were. The shimmeriest and smoothest rocks sat closest to me and the line would run all the way to the deck’s edge, where sat the broken and brown rocks. I would go down the line, telling each what I liked about them, why I had picked them up, repeating the words I had said on the beach: smooth, sparkle, heavy, small, rough, glassy…

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Outside St. Cwyfan’s, it has begun to rain lightly. While my group moves inside and under the eaves of the church, giggling and zipping up raincoats, I walk to the island’s low bordering wall. The land runs straight up to the edge, like flour heaping from a measuring cup. I lie down in the grass, my eyes level with the wall, hands crossed beneath my chin. I watch the sun setting over the ocean and I imagine its water as a great tabletop and me as a child, nose pressed just against its edge until everything is a vast plane of wood grain under a drywall sky.

St. Cwyfan’s wall was built in the 1880s, when a group of locals realized that the land was eroding. While the church is still here, obviously, before me spread a delta of cracks in the wall’s stones and the concrete laid over them. From the cracks, lichens are growing in a multitude of colors, oranges and whites and greens blending into the ocean beyond them, then blending into the horizon and impending star rise. I wonder if they realize that their house is built on sand, made to look like a rock. St. Cwyfan’s is still slowly eroding and sinking and shrinking and no number of pyramids of rocks and shells will ever save it, no matter how perfectly piled, no matter how named or washed or lined up in perfect rows. We can place a stone in front of a tomb but, eventually, it will be rolled away. Waves will roar. The world will lose its miracles and begin waiting, waiting for salvation. Rock, paper, scissors. Chapel, rock, time. Rock covers chapel. Chapel covers time. Time covers rock. We cannot win.

Rocks are mentioned many, many times in the Bible. Miracles happen at rocks. Water and fire are brought forth from them; they are broken into pieces by the wind and rent at the death of Christ. They are used as places of worship, shelter, observation, and meeting. Rocks build homes, hammer nails, hold the Ten Commandments, and Christ himself is, countless times, likened to a rock: strong, trustworthy, and ever-lasting. During Sunday school, we would often talk about the parable of the man who builds his house on a rock and the other who builds his house on sand. Whose life isn’t sturdy? Who’s in trouble when bad weather comes? We had a song with hand motions and made sample buildings out of toothpicks on top of sand from the playground and rocks we brought from home. The sand would always wash out, tiny houses and schools and bakeries floating towards the drain until, at the last second, the teacher would reach in and pluck them out. They lay outside the classroom on the pavement in tiny lines, drying in the sun so we could take them home.

As I walk back from St. Cwyfan’s, the grit of sand and November cold forces its way into my skin and I collect my shells hurriedly, taking anything I like even slightly, pushing it into my pocket, and trudging forward. Shells are almost never mentioned in the Bible, except when listed in offerings or accounts of supplies. In Exodus, the Lord tells Moses to take shells with him to leave on the altar of the Tabernacle, the Israelites’ temple and dwelling place for the Spirit. I pass again over the algae-covered rocks and turn to look back at the church once more. A lone grey heron roams the beaches as the sound of the nearby racetrack shakes in the air. The sun is nearly set, the white church now an inky silhouette losing its edges. My classmates are far ahead, so I run back to the bus, the sheep along the country roads vanishing, afraid of my footfalls.

Back at my dormitory, I will pull the shells from my pockets one by one and rinse them in the sink, sand trailing down the drain. They will spread across my windowsill in small, neat lines, peaks rising and falling like sand dunes or rocks in low tide. I will bring back rocks, too, slowly at first, then by the multitudes, numbering each with a fine tip marker. In a notebook, I will list the numbers, followed the places I collected them. Aran Islands, Ireland; Arthur’s Seat, Edinburgh; Menai Strait, Anglesey; Mount Snowdon. They lie in my desk in plastic bags, carefully placed next to each other in the dark, but never touching, like old birds in a museum drawer.