A gift from the past…

When I was growing up there was always a copy of Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s “A Gift from the Sea” in the bookcase.  My mother had read it, probably as part of a bible study group, and liked it very much. When I was a teenager she had recommended I read it.

 “Who wrote it?” I asked.

 Anne Morrow Lindbergh, she’s a poet and Charles Lindbergh’s wife.  Even though these people were famous I knew they were real old.  I was not interested.

 Looking back I wouldn’t have liked or appreciated the book.  It’s definitely written for women who have experienced years of marriage, child raising and LIFE.  As a teenager I had not experienced any of these.

 Teenagers are not looking for harmony and balance in their lives.  They want to take off, listen to the Beatles endlessly, eat too much spaghetti and stay up all night watching TV.

 Many years later, I have enjoyed reading “A Gift from the Sea”. AML is what my mother would have described as a lovely person.  This is the first book in a long while where I hear such a personal voice.  I feel like I know her, she’s talking to me.  She is a warm and generous. Having grown up writing poetry her prose are sparse and choice of words delicious.

 “The beach is not the place to work, to read, write or think…Too warm, too damp, too soft for any real mental discipline or sharp flights of spirit.”

 Take me to that beach!

 Sea shells are the skeleton of the book.  They are treasure AML finds on the beach.  Channelled Whelk, Moon Shell and Argonauta. She describes their colors, shapes and they become a metaphor for stages in her life.  She then takes them home to sit on her desk to remind her of her beach holiday.

 It’s so tidy.

 Even though it is written in 1955 she writes about women with their over busy, fragmented lives.  Stress even back then.

 “Saints are rarely married women” AML humorously makes the point that a single man or woman will have much more time for meditation, prayer and good works.

 In support of an ever current argument she points out that women are not paid for their work at home so they are often overworked and underappreciated.

 Another surprise!

 “For women much of this new awareness is due to the Women’s Liberation movement…The best “growing ground” for women however, may be in the widespread mushrooming of women’s discussion groups of all types and sizes.  Women are talking to each other, not simply in the private kitchen, the nursery or over the back fence, as they have done through the ages, but in public groups.  They are airing their problems, discovering themselves and comparing their experiences.”

 My mother would have found it inappropriate to “air her problems” in a group.

 I have found reading this book such a gift.  The language is beautiful and she discusses that balance and harmony we all need in our lives. It was like taking a little restful brake in a beach cottage on Captiva.