Among my books is Tracy Chevalier’s Remarkable Creatures, an historical novel about a girl’s discovery of large fossils in Southwest England in the 1800s. In the course of the story, the girl develops a friendship with a newly arrived, older maiden lady that is based on each being drawn to the beach every morning to search for fossils and especially ammonites. The two are quite different, not only as to their respective places in society but also from one another, but they share a passion for fossils that transcends their differences. While their personal relationship was the fictional imaginings of the author, their actual existence and the narrative describing the controversy that swirled around the identification of these fossils at that time are true, and both women’s names are recorded in historical documents for their discoveries and specimen collections. Reading their story, I felt fascinated by their interest, aware of mine, and imagined joining them.
Several years ago here, as I stood outside a small store, I greeted a woman who I knew to be a writer but did not know well personally. I noticed a spiral object on her neck chain. Looking more carefully, then with recognition, I had said to her, “Wait a moment, I have just the book for you,” for it was an ammonite on her chain. Our free library at the time was an old metal cabinet with old newspapers and books in piles at odd angles—nothing to inspire any but the most determined reader to search through. It was Tracy Chevalier’s book that I had returned and was now hastening to find in the disorganized stacks, and when I did, I spoke a strong “Yes” of excitement. I asked that the book be returned to me so that I might keep it as I had unaccountably felt its loss. Listening to my brief explanation, the writer told me that she had been to the southwest of England and to the town within whose cliffs the large fossils had first been discovered.
Each of the women whose ammonites had riveted my attention gladly told me either of how it came to her or why she wore it. For me, the fascination I felt and still do for this shell tells me something I cannot fully put into words. I know two things: that I will reread Remarkable Creatures again, and that in the spiral design of each completion that creates the new circumference of the ammonite’s shell, I recognize a metaphor for adding knowledge and wisdom—it is a way of learning for me.
My realization is, “While the present moment is all that exists, it may include dives into the past to bring back a moment as a remembered treasure when the time is right.”
* www.discoveringfossils.co.uk/ammonites.htm