Bottled Up

"Hurricane Sandy Washes Up Years-old Message in a Bottle"

That was the title of a small article tucked within the left margin of the Nation and World Section of the Denver Post on Friday, July 12, 2013.  It tells the heart warming tale of a bottle that washed ashore in Patchogue, Long Island, New York during the massive hurricane that hit the East Coast shortly before.

The green plastic screw top soda bottle contained a note from, then a 10 year old girl, Sidonie Fery.  It simply contained a line from a popular movie at the time "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure".  According to the article, it reflected the young girl's perspective on life ...... "Be excellent to yourself, dude!"

The sad part of the story was that Sidonie died eight years after she tossed that bottle into the ocean in an accident while at a boarding school in Switzerland.  The park service workers who found the bottle gave it to Sidonie's mother who was obviously touched by the discovery and more so by their act of kindness. 

The story as wonderful and tragic as it is, is not what I am getting at. 

It got me thinking on a few levels.  First, I imagined that those bottles tossed into the ocean are not the corked up pirate treasure maps of boyhood dreams but are quite average and very human.  

Then I thought that besides the millions of bottles bobbing up and down in the sea, there are similar message delivering devices out there with the same aim.  What about time capsules?  School kids and public officials spend hours thinking about what to put in them.  What they want the future to understand about them, their town, their lives.  What about those countless tins buried by children in backyards or cigar boxes stuffed in rafters or under floorboards?   All have messages in word or object that have very real meaning to those who want it to be found.

Perhaps the contents are whimsical and fun with no ulterior motive other than to inform or entertain.  In the spirit of educating future generation, time capsules typically provide a pretty plain vanilla glimpse of how we living and what we hold important.  Not sure if the mayor of Anytown, USA would ever venture beyond including what the town's folk did that Fourth of July, Lily Jenkins was Miss Sweet Potato 2013 and the glorious accomplishments prominent citizens performed that year.  No deep dark scandal to shock future inhabitants, I bet. 

Regardless if it is a message of desperation, sadness, encouragement, joy, desire, simple information or just plain whimsy as in Sidonie's case, the contents are the depositors desire to get their own private thoughts out and share with someone.   Interesting enough .... that someone purposely is unknown...... a perfect stranger lucky enough to discover these very personal things adrift in the ocean or buried in the ground.  Why?   Well…why not. It is easier and safer to share ones inner feelings and secrets that way.  What harm or worry would it cause.  No one would question.   Not many would even bother, except for a few well-meaning park service employees. 

There a many other "bottles" floating aimlessly in the "sea" hoping and waiting to be discovered and its lonely contents shared.  Perhaps some bottles should remain lost and its messages kept silent.  Perhaps others messages should not be bottled up at all but shared with those who care.  Then again, perhaps some bottles really do contain maps to hidden treasures.  Perhaps …..