“It was spring in Florida and I was as much a part of the spring day as the roseate spoonbills flying overhead and the hot pink periwinkles covering the ground and the pale pink coquina shells burying themselves beneath the sand. I was shy too, like those coquina shells.”—excerpt from the book Portion of the Sea

 When my boys were little, we would sit by the shore at the Lighthouse Beach and I would teach them their colors by way of the coquina shells. Each time one of the tiny shells surfaced in the sand, my boys had to call out its color before it slipped back under. My son asked why the little shells disappear so quickly and I remember telling him they are shy, and we went on to discuss shyness. I went home that morning and added to the first line of the novel I was writing: I was shy too, like those coquina shells.

 I get an abundance of inspiration while wading in the Gulf of Mexico with my children or watching sunsets with my family. It’s why all three of my novels take place here on Sanibel where I live. Recently, my husband and I went for a weekend to New York City and I wondered whether fresh ideas might come to me while in the city. But looking up at those skyscrapers when the tallest structure I’m used to seeing is Sanibel’s Lighthouse, and gazing into those store windows at the colorful designer handbags when the most colorful objects I notice back home are seashells, I told my husband, “I’m not getting ideas for writing, but maybe I could get a new purse and some clothes instead.”

 But then I passed a kiosk of a major NY newspaper and its enormously bold headline reached out and grabbed me: Welcome to Florida! The doom and gloom of that headline, related to the oil spill, stopped me in my tracks. I had been with my children at our beach a few days ago playing waist-high in the water and there was no oil. The headline made it look as if all of Florida was seeing oil, and if you visit, oil is what you get.

 The truth is, most of Florida has not seen oil and it is my hope that we never will. In the wake of this oil tragedy, I appreciate life and nature like never before while at the same time deeply mourn and feel angry for what is happening in the waters where the oil has reached—the loss of life right on down to the mollusks living unseen and unheard within the intricate interior kingdoms of the seashells.

 Since the spill, it is my son who keeps inquiring about the wellbeing of these slimy little beings because he has a heart for all creatures great and small. Last summer he spotted someone taking a live shell from the water. I stood watching, ready to count how many live ones she planned to take, but my son put an end to it after the first, walking up to the lady, telling her it was wrong, taking a live shell from the water. I told my boy he was a hero for having spoken out, and for having saved if even a single, miniscule form of life. There is as much to learn from a child as there is from the sea.

 Back in New York we took a narrated bus tour of the city, but with those Welcome to Florida headlines on every corner, all I could think of was the oil. And when people heard we were Floridians, they gave us condolences, asked whether they should cancel travel plans, and one asked whether we had seen black pelicans. “No,” I told them. “Our coastline remains unspoiled. There is no oil where we live.” And the last time I noticed, the roseate spoonbills, periwinkles and coquina shells were all still pink!

 As the bus passed by the New York Public Library, the narrator pointed out two marble lions guarding the entrance and told us the lions were named ‘Patience’ and ‘Fortitude’ at a difficult time in New York’s history when those virtues were needed the most. Of course I scribbled this all down and my husband asked, “Getting ideas for a book, dear?” No, darling, but it had me thinking if there were lions (or maybe sea lions) standing guard on the Causeway Bridge, what would we name them? ‘Truth’ and ‘Hope’ came to mind but I’m sure everyone has their own thoughts as to what Sanibel needs most at this time.