"...And nothing pierced your feet? Surprising!..."

 "...And nothing pierced your feet? Surprising!..."

...commented one of my friends, when she read about a jog I did barefoot on the beach once, when my shoe broke.

"I used to go there daily for years & always saw so many pieces of broken bottles at the beach." she added.

The Friday after that, my daughter joined me for the jog at the beach. While I had my shoes on, she was barefoot. All went well & I had actually forgot about that comment on broken glasses.

Last Friday, again she tagged along & ran barefoot, but this time, I recalled that comment & now started watching where her feet were landing. To my shock, I did see quite a few broken pieces of glass around where we were jogging. I alerted her about it & told her to watch out. We kept jogging & till the time we stopped, I kept worrying about the fact that she might hurt her feet. After a while, she decided to play with her sand toys & I continued.

I was still wondering how these pieces weren't hurting so many walkers/joggers/runners. So then everytime I saw a piece of broken glass, I paused to examine it. Since there were plenty of such around, within about 5 mins I had encountered 8 or 9 such pieces. I stopped to pick up each to see why they weren't hurting anyone.

What I saw, and deduced, was:

1. Almost all pieces were noticeable, a few cms wide. Did not spot tiny (or large) pieces. All these pieces probably get thrown by the sea, daily, but the sea only throws out pieces of a particular size perhaps. Tiny/large pieces either get sucked in or (tiny ones) get mixed in the sand easily.

2. Nearly all of these pieces belonged to bottles as most of them were curved.

3. "All" of the curved ones were resting in a position where the broken edges were facing down. The force and motion of waves perhaps act in a way, that they always land with edges facing down - this means anyone stepping on them won't get hurt.

4. For a few which were flattish (as well as for the ones that were curved), the edges had smoothened out, they weren't sharp. Perhaps the effect of the waves also significantly eliminates the sharpness in the edges & hence even if one were to step on an edge, it would be nearly harmless, not potent enough to make a cut.

Learnings:

1. Sometimes, ignorance is indeed a bliss. Till the time I wasn't aware of these glass pieces & hadn't noticed, I wasn't worried about running barefoot. Now that I know these exist, I will always have some worry, especially for my kid when she runs barefoot (even though the probability of getting hurt might be low).

2. Nature always has a way of protecting. The sea, in this instance, ensures the glasses land curved side up and take the sharpness off from the edges.

3. A thing which would cause extreme fear, anxiety & caution in one scenario, almost goes unnoticed & unfeared in other. Imagine pieces of glass, laid down in your path on a usual floor, as opposed to them being on a beach (albeit with the washdown effect).

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