Pantheon Books, New York 1955, 1975 132pp
Anne Morrow Lindberg was a remarkable woman of the 20th century. In 1929 she married aviator Charles Lindberg and accompanied him on his survey flights around the North Atlantic to launch the first trans-oceanic airlines. She was no stranger to tragedy. Their first baby was abducted and murdered and for a time they moved to Europe for privacy. They later moved to the Connecticut coast where she went on to raise a family of five, and wrote several books.
As a middle-aged woman trying to balance the demands of a large family with her writing career, she began to seek a contemplative corner of her own. This led her to make a solitary retreat by the sea where, initially, she found herself too exhausted to do anything but just be. By the second week, her mind was beginning to come to life again:'“It begins to drift, to play, to turn over in gentle careless rolls like those lazy waves on the beach.” p. 10
As she opened herself up to this experience, neither seeking nor forcing it, she began to receive the treasures of the sea – the exotic loveliness of the shells. These provided her with a vibrant series of metaphors which furnished her with the material to interpret some of her own life issues: the need for solitude – to stand still and learn from our experiences, the need to understand the complex nature of our relationships, the need to confront and deal with the fear which “makes me cling nostalgically to the last moment or clutch greedily toward the next.” P. 100
Lindberg took the risk of sharing her thoughts with others and made the (to her) surprising discovery that she was far from unique in her quest for deeper meaning in life. This encouraged her to share these thoughts with a much wider audience. She was a visionary. Writing in the middle of the 20th century, her ideas and observations are universal and timeless.
This is a very sensory book. To go into its metaphors in further detail would be to pull apart the threads of this lovely tapestry. It needs to be experienced and harvested first hand in order to truly nourish the soul. Instead, I would invite the reader to go and experience the colours and textures of the shells, listen to the sound of the sea, savour its taste and smell and in so doing, drink deeply from the well of Lindberg’s wisdom. As she received her gift from the sea, we are much richer for the sharing of that gift with us.
Lynne Roberts © 2008
