Saturday, April 19, 2014

Shells - a gift from the sea

Gift From the Sea –by Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Nonfiction / Memoir
128 pages / 181KB
4 Stars

This is a charming memoir of one of America's revered women. It is filled with beautiful words, and word pictures, about her life, and what it means to be a woman (at least in the 1950s)

The book was a gift from a dear friend, who thought I would get a great deal out of it, and I did though, perhaps, not as much as my friend. We are, after all, different people. I found many things I could relate to, and also many things that reminded me of the age difference between us (Ms. Lindbergh was born 37 years before me).

Of the things that did speak to me, and there were many, this sentence was one:  "The here, the now, and the individual, have always been the special concern of the saint, the artist, the poet, and—from time immemorial—the woman." Where Ms. Lindbergh apparently remained home as a housewife and mother, I had to work to support my children and myself. She was a full time wife/mother, or views on life, of necessity, were different. And yet, that one sentence stood out for me, for I am a woman, and a poet, and now and then, an artist. I would never, ever, claim to be a saint.

I will probably read this book again. I have found, through the years, that my perception and reception of books often changes when my mood changes, or when my worries/stresses change.


This is a marvelous book to read just before turning out the light for a good night's sleep!

1 comment:

  1. Since receiving this book as a gift, I've re-read it every summer--over the past 14 years. Every year, I find yet another question or statement from her own summer beach writing contemplation (circa 1955), a thought that resonates with me decades later. "What is the shape of my life? she asks as she considers a Channelled Whelk shell she's picked up. What statement about her marriage does she find in a Double-Sunrise shell, so rarely found still with both halfs connected. have the 1976 edition (after her famous aviator husband had died) as she--much like us--find our lives changing abruptly sometimes. I'm not a writer nor poet as is our Blogger Lenora. Yet, I thiink the beauty of this slim volume is how within its pages are thoughts that reach out to many different types of women. I hope you make you Summer Read some summer. Judith, age 73

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