Gift From The Sea
The course of our lives are often significantly changed by the greatest challenges that we face. The most difficult experiences of my life somehow led me to share my photography, which is my greatest source of inspiration, joy and comfort. Perhaps that is why I am so drawn to the work of Anne Morrow Lindbergh.
When she was 21, Anne Morrow met famous aviator, Charles Lindbergh. Two years later she became his wife and also his co-pilot, navigator and radio operator. In 1932, only a few years into her marriage, the unthinkable happened: her 20-month-old infant son was kidnapped and murdered. It is difficult to imagine how such a tragedy must have affected her.
A few years after this life-changing experience, Anne found her true voice as a writer. She published her first book in 1935. She went on to write more than two dozen works of prose and poetry. Her best-loved work, Gift From the Sea, was published in 1955. The book remained on the nonfiction bestseller list of The New York Times for 80 weeks and sold five million copies during its first 20 years in print. Anne's daughter, Reeve, describes the reason for its' success in the 50th anniversary edition of the book:
"Her book offers its readers, finally an extraordinary kind of freedom, and I think this is the reason it continues to be so well loved, and so well read, after all these years. I am talking about the freedom that comes when one chooses to remain open, as my mother did again and again, to life itself, whatever it may bring: joys, sorrows, triumphs, failures, suffering, comfort, and above all, always, change."
Anne wrote this book during a two week retreat on Florida’s Captiva Island. She reflects on the need to balance the demands of modern life with peace and solitude and she encourages her readers to make room for contemplation and creativity in their lives. Here are some excerpts from the book that I found particularly meaningful:
"What a commentary on our civilization, when being alone is considered suspect; when one has to apologize for it, make excuses, hide the fact that one practices it — like a secret vice! Actually these are the most important times in one’s life — when one is alone. Certain springs are tapped only when we are alone. The artist knows he must be alone to create; the writer, to work out his thoughts; the musician, to compose; the saint, to pray."
"How to remain whole in the midst of the distractions of life; how to remain balanced, no matter what centrifugal forces tend to pull one off center; how to remain strong, no matter what shocks come in at the periphery and tend to crack the hub of the wheel. What is the answer? There is no easy answer, no complete answer..."
"The solution for me, surely, is neither in total renunciation of the world, nor in total acceptance of it. I must find a balance somewhere, or an alternating rhythm between these two extremes; a swinging of the pendulum between solitude and communion, between retreat and return."
