Gift from the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh

We may delude ourselves and act as though this were not so. It is, as the poet Rilke says, “not something that one can take or leave. this basic state of solitude is not something we have any choice about. The children go away to school and then to marriage and lives of their own… What is one to do - die of atrophy in an outstripped form? Or move on to another form, other experiences?

The house, with its bulging sleeping porches and sheds, begins little by little to empty. How untidy (this shell) has become! Blurred with moss, knobby with barnacles, its shape is hardly recognizable any more. And it continues to enrich their lives in more ways than material possessions can ever satisfy.Įxcerpts from Gift from the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh A ground-breaking bestseller when it first appeared, Gift from the Sea continues to be discovered by new generations of readers. Drawing inspiration from the shells on the shore, Lindbergh’s musings on the shape of a woman’s life bring wisdom to both men and women at any stage of life, insights on how to live a more balanced life, neither forsaking modernity nor be seduced by its unceasing siren songs. In her beloved classic, Gift from the Sea (originally published in 1955), Anne Morrow Lindbergh – mother of five, an acclaimed writer and a pioneering aviator – shares her thoughts on on youth and age, love and marriage the angst of living to material aspirations, solitude and contentment during a brief vacation by the sea. One should lie empty, open, choiceless as a beach - waiting for a gift from the sea. Patience, patience, patience, is what the sea teaches.

To dig for treasures shows not only impatience and greed, but lack of faith. The sea does not reward those who are too anxious, too greedy, or too impatient.