Gift from the Sea

Meditations on life, following the popular themes of solitude, minimalism and cultivating meaningful relationships with oneself and others, with interesting side-leaps into feminism (well, privileged feminism of the upper middle class), I really enjoyed Lindbergh's writing here, and her use of the different types of shells as analogies for relationships.

What's fascinating is how what she wrote sixty years ago is still so pertinent today, such as being constantly surrounded by distractions, being connected to more information and people than ever before - we are asked today to feel compassionately for everyone in the world, to digest intellectually all the information spread out in public print; and to implement in action every ethical show more impulse aroused by our hearts and minds. The inter-relatedness of the world links us constantly with more people than our hearts can hold -, and the danger of this is that this overload ends up as an abstraction for us, as one mass, one giant entity, depriving each of the individuality/meaning/compassion they deserve.

My edition came with an afterword twenty years after the original, and it is refreshing and heartening to see Lindbergh admitting her assumptions of feminism to have been naïve and her ideas of it now to be still evolving as she observes the differences in her daughters, and her appreciation of the ongoing awareness which have brought upon positive changes. I'd be so intrigued to hear her thoughts on it now, another forty years on, especially since she recognised that her particular brand of feminism applied only to certain American women. What would she think about the state of things now?

Aside: Most of the book isn't really about feminism but it's definitely the part that leapt out at me. show less

I am amazed that a woman writing in 1955 could so clearly articulate my own (2022) feelings about womanhood, motherhood, creativity, spirituality, and marriage. Lindbergh's introspection into her life is like a beacon of light for the rest of us to follow as we stumble down our own murky paths. With grace, kindness and remarkable insight, she offers gentle advice on relationships, work, and parenting in a way few other authors have.

I'm so grateful a friend recommended this book to me. It was just what I needed at this -- the oyster bed -- phase of my life.

In Gift from the Sea, Anne Morrow Lindbergh concerns herself with life as it was lived in the 1950s, particularly, it seems, as lived by American women of her own social class. She finds it useful (and I won’t begrudge her the idea that it is so) to find in seashells the gift of inspirations for thinking about big and small spaces, about how life can demand too much in too little time or offer too little in much time, and about the ways one might find a success that harmonizes with one’s spirit.

She writes, “If one sets aside time for a business appointment, a trip to the hairdresser, a social engagement, or a shopping expedition, that time is accepted as inviolable. But if one says: I cannot come because that is my hour to be show more alone, one is considered rude, egotistical, or strange.”

This is key: “A room of one’s own” needs an hour of one’s own, too.

Lindbergh champions the idea of seeking out the unknown. She sees big-city life, with all its variety, motivating individuals to restrict their acquaintance to others like them, exchanging the opportunity presented by the unknown for the familiarity of the comfortable. She wants us, women and men, to seek the unknown, saying “it is the unknown with all its disappointments and surprises that is the most enriching.”

While not a book I would have thought to pick up (it arrived at the house long ago as part of a Book Club package and I’ve only now just read it), I find myself thinking Anne Morrow Lindbergh is someone I would like to have met, to have talked with for an hour or so. And not because she knew some guy named Charles. show less

Who knew that Charles Lindbergh’s wife was such a wonderful writer? I certainly didn’t. Gift From the Sea is a slim nonfiction book that she wrote on learning to enjoy life and manage the day-to-day struggles we can all relate to. The 50th anniversary edition of the book I read included an added retrospective chapter at the end.

Lindbergh compares different stages in a woman’s life to various shells she finds on the beach. The shells aren’t the point; it’s what they represent that carries the weight of the work. She touches on maintaining your individuality as a woman despite marriage and motherhood, a difficult balance to find.

Lindbergh’s writing is full of simple truths, but they’re ones we often miss in life. Her show more musings are all the more poignant when you remember that her child was kidnapped and murder. Yet somehow she was still able to maintain some perspective and attain a healthy life despite that tragedy.

I can’t think of a single woman I wouldn’t recommend this to. It’s a lovely reminder to appreciate whatever stage you’re in at the moment. I always fill my days with a million commitments and small tasks and this was a wonderful reminder to slow down and just enjoy the bliss of doing nothing sometimes.

Her words can speak for themselves, so here’s a few of the lines I loved…

“We Americans, with out terrific emphasis on youth, action, and material success, certainly tend to belittle the afternoon of life and pretend it never comes.”

“By and large, mothers and housewives are the only workers who do not have regular time off. They are the great vacationless class.”

“Perhaps both men and women in America may hunger, in our material, outward, active, masculine culture, for the supposedly feminine qualities of the heart, mind and spirit – qualities which are actually neither masculine or feminine, but simply human qualities that have been neglected.”

“I find there is a quality to being alone that is incredibly precious.” show less

[W]oman must come of age by herself -- she must find her true center alone. The lesson seems to need re-learning about every twenty years in a woman’s life.

A Virginia Woolf-like rumination, here on the phases of women’s adult lives to early middle age. Each is explored in a short chapter that suggests a way to stay grounded in self, each made memorable through symbolism by a different seashell. Lovely, and still relevant nearly 60 years after initial publication (in fact I see aspects of it in contemporary books). I wish she had updated it with passages about the losses that come to women in midlife and beyond.

I thought, when I got this book, that it would be a book of poems or maybe prose poems. Something not too deep, but whimsical and pleasant. Why I thought that is unknown. What I got was thoughtful and lovely reflections on a life: a female life, in her middle years, a mother, a wife and a writer to boot. It anticipates such books as: "A Year by the Sea:Thoughts of an Unfinished Woman" by Joan Anderson and works by Julia Cameron. It is about writing, about finding one's center, about being human, about being whole -- and yet it is not preachy nor is it a self-help book. I really enjoyed it. An unexpected pleasure.

Your experience with this book will be like everything else in life – it depends on the attitude you bring. I think most people will find this book full of profound meditations on what it means to be an American woman, most still as true today as they were when she wrote them in 1955. This is one of those books that you can read over again at different ages and stages in your life and find totally new gems that you missed before.

I picked this up after reading The Aviator’s Wife by Melanie Benjamin, because I wanted to know more about Anne Morrow Lindbergh, who was perpetually in the shadow of her famous husband.