Something from the Sea is an original song inspired by “Coral Necklace,” an episode of Love Letters to Forgotten Things.

It’s about the strange, fragile bravery of having a first crush before you really understand what to do with the feeling.

At twelve or thirteen, affection can feel enormous while your vocabulary for it is still painfully small. So sometimes you reach for an object instead. A souvenir. A little piece of somewhere else that might somehow say what you’re too terrified to say yourself.

For me, it was a coral necklace brought home from a family vacation in Florida. I spent far too much time choosing it, carrying it home, wrapping it, and worrying about what giving it might mean. She accepted it kindly. Nothing romantic ever came of it. Life simply moved on.

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