Every year I try to read through one of my favorite inspirational books:
Gift From The Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh. I am a fan of Anne M L in general. Her writing displays a deep intellect and insight into every day life as a woman creating art through writing. She is frank about her desires to be a better mother and homemaker and she admits to falling very short of the ideals society expected of women in the 1950's. Here is an excerpt from
Against Wind and Tide Letters and Journals from 1946-1986. She had just gotten back from an exploration trip out in the western states with Charles in a problematic camper. "Actually these were not--did not seem like-- ordeals to me, but more like adventures. The difficulties lie for me, curiously enough, in what is most ordinary for all the other women in the world--in keeping house, in shopping, in cooking; in ordinary living. I am very stupid at it because I have never really done it. I have never shopped and cooked and cleaned for my husband like an ordinary woman. When most women learn this--when they are first married--I was learning to fly and to operate a radio and to navigate and fly a glider." (May 26, 1947) She was married in 1929 at 23 and wrote these words as a 40 year old woman trying to get up to speed with homemaking after years of traveling adventures with her husband.
In Gift From The Sea, Anne goes to a favorite spot, Captiva Island, to gain clarity on her life through refelction on the beach. How amazing would that be to escape to an island cottage to wipe the inner slate clear from daily distractions? Yet, as I read the book, each time I am reminded and encouraged to do just that. To create time to reflect and get a break from the weight of dailiness. As a celebrity, it is astonishing how closely tied Anne was to the demands of every day life. She was famous, but the care of her home and family were solely her responsibility while her husband was away most of the time as an aviator. She was a brilliant writer and had to carve out time to do what she was deeply called to. She made time for her craft. But the distrations were endless. Here is a very relateable list from the book: "food, shelter, meals, planning, marketing, bills, making the ends meet in a thousand ways, experts to keep the modern household running; electricity, plumming, refrigerator, gas-stove, oil-burner, dishwasher, radios, car, numerous other labor saving devices to keep functioning properly, health, doctors, dentists, appointments, medicine, cod-liver oil, vitamins, trips to the drugstrore, education, spiritual, intellectual, physical, schools, school conferences, car-pools, extra trips for basketball or orchestra practice, tutoring, camps, camp equipment, transportation, clothes, shopping, laundry, cleaning, mending, letting skirts down, and sewing buttons on, or finding someone else to do it, friends, of husband, self, children.. arrangememnts to get together, letters, invitations, phone calls, transportation hither and yon." Not much has changed since 1950. Women seem to be the ones taking care of the list. And that is what Anne wanted to see change in some way, to see women getting a break from all the things and doing what was meaningful on the soul level in a personal way. She set the example by being a Writer.
