I know better than to romanticize beach glass. I know most began as beer bottles, with a random bottle of SKYY vodka contributing a little blue among the white and green and brown. But I also know that how things begin isn't always how they end, and I wonder where and how that one piece of purple started.

As I wander among the rocks and the wet sand, picking and collecting bits of color, I can feel how the waters and the grit blunt sharp edges. What started out as pointed and cutting has become smooth, rounded, safe. The bright, brilliant colors have become softer, more mellowed.

Sometimes, th...