Lindbergh explains that she is packing up to leave Captiva Island, the island on Florida’s coast where she stays while writing the book. She reflects upon her time there and whether it provided her with answers to the questions about life that she was asking when she arrived. She concludes, “I have a few shells in my pocket, a few clues, only a few” (127). To explain this enigmatic statement, Lindbergh begins by describing her changing attitude toward the collection of shells on the beach. In her first days there, she says, she collected them in a greedy and indiscriminate way. As she says, “I couldn’t even walk head up looking out to sea, for fear of missing something precious at my feet” (127). Her acquisitive urge meant that she was, at first, blinded to her surroundings.

However, over time, and after filling all the spaces in her cottage with shells, she began to discriminate. She realized “they are more beautiful if they are few” (128). A single double-sunrise shell is significant, Lindbergh argues, whereas having six of them is trivial and commonplace “like a week of schooldays” (128).