Pebbles and Stardust

They'd call me the Pebbles crazy fool.

But there ain't no madness about me. I just spend time collecting rocks. Not regular ones. Only special ones. Smaller stones, medium-sized ones, or big heavy rocks, as long as they look special or different to me. I've been doing it for years now and spent maybe a little too much time around it to look like the normal guy.

I've been hiking this hill for as long as I remember. Some people climb on top of mountains to get closer to the skies. I do it with my eyes down to the ground. Actually, I rarely aim for the top. I just want to go at the heart of the mountain, to the heart of each stone I pick up, see what's in it. I believe some of these stones may contain parts of the story of the universe’s creation. "All are from the dust and all return to dust", says the Bible. "Remember you're made from dust and you'll return to dust." the priest reminds us on Ash Wednesday. So the rocks are kind of like family to me, ancestors on my family tree.

Here is how I started my collection, about 40 years ago. I'd go for a walk, look down for some different shapes or looks, and fill my backpack with the ones I liked. Once I got home, I'd knock on them to see what's in it. Sometimes, they would be plain solid, just regular stones. The kind of stones the quarry provides to build roads or buildings. But sometimes I can hear her heart beating. When I knock on its shell the right way and with the proper tools, the stone would break open wide to a whole new universe.

That is when I'd grab my little black notebook and write down everything I could observe. What size and how heavy it was, details for which I use basic instruments to measure. Then, what colours it appears to be and in what tones does it range? Is it hard and polished or soft and rough at the tip of your fingers? Covered with needle-like crystals? At times I would even note an odor to it, subtle but characterized with its earthy kind of smell: a sulfur-like smell as I rub it hard, or else burning tar or burning pine sap when I stick a hot needle at its core. Some can even reveal a garlic scent if you strike it with a hammer; don’t taste those ones, that’s a sign of the presence of arsenic!

All of this, I didn't know at the very beginning of my quest to find stardust within the soil of this mountain. But my curiosity got me reading and studying all about geology, stones and gems. I also looked up stories about the formation of this particular mountain, as to when and how it emerged from the earth to touch the sky in the middle of these otherwise flat country grounds. At some point, I got myself some top-notch instruments like a microscope and a high-definition camera to archive everything properly. I I felt like a star explorer when I opened up my "pebbles," as people called them. But it also made me feel like I was travelling through time. And that was a wonderful feeling..

I'm speaking of the past, now, not because I'm done my quest or I've found all the answers this mountain could reveal. She's not done talking from the bottom of her heart. But as my collection grew and my little black notebooks piled up, the word got out. It became somewhat public when the quarry supervisors allowed me to search their grounds after-hours. Then I gave some interviews, here and there, about my motivations and my findings, which happened to be of the largest and sometimes rarest variety of minerals.

Eventually, one rainy morning, when I wasn't out hiking, the phone rang. Itwas a director for the provincial Nature museum, its geology branch. They wanted to know more about my collection, she said. After a few visits from specialists, geologists and an estimator, there came their offer: they wanted to purchase my collection and preserve most of it into a new permanent exhibit about the formation of the Monteregian Hills. Along with an offer of $20, 000 was a promise to give my name to the collection.

So here I am, letting it all go for the advancement of science and knowledge. I know by now I was not going to record proof of the very beginning of our universe in one of my small black notebooks, but at least I left to future generations some stories and proofs about the universe from the Pebblescrazy fool searching for stardust.