This post was first written and posted to my original blog, Which Name?, on July 22, 2010. I selected it to re-post now, in the midst of a conversation in a beloved mamas group about our need for alone, restorative time. One mama mentioned this book, I chimed in that I used to re-read it, and I remembered that I had blogged about it. Fourteen years ago(!) I was struck by its relevance and it is still relevant today. What does that mean about a mother's/woman's changing needs (or lack of change) over time? The time of our own lives, but also over the time since this book was written, nearly 70 years ago?
Summer brought a change in pace, activities, time, and energy this year.
I've felt a bit pulled in multiple directions, feeling always "on" with
my children, craving a vacation. Craving time alone.
I have
always felt guilty with this need. After all, I am incredibly fortunate
to be home with my children. There are days I send a very reluctant Mike
off to work and I am reminded, again, what a gift he is giving me.
Although they can be trying (I've given up attempting to keep my house
clean this summer. I have been too busy on damage control), our children
are also very sweet, are the best of friends, and I am blessed to have
the time with them to truly know them.
But it can be tiring, giving of oneself to others without enough personal rejuvenation.
I have carved out time for creating, often with the kids, but I have had little time alone, to just sit and be.
What time I have stolen (because truly, it feels as though I am taking
time from someone else (my husband?) or something else (sleep,
perhaps?) to make it so), I have been reading.
I have just finished A Gift from the Sea, by Anne Morrow Lindbergh.
I
have always considered myself a mountain and forest girl first, despite
growing up by the ocean, but in recent months, it has been the sea and
sand I have been craving for rejuvenation.
I cannot express how
perfect this book was for me to read at this time. Set by the ocean,
with the ocean as the theme, Lindbergh discusses being a woman. Perhaps
what amazed me most is that this book was written in 1955, yet still
managed to touch so many pieces of my own life today. How poignantly
history is woven into the now. It will probably always be this way in
some way.
I want to share with you with some quotes from the book.
"…Today, more of us in America
than anywhere else in the world have the luxury of choice between
simplicity and complication of life. And for the most part, we, who
could choose simplicity, choose complication.”
“Every person, especially every woman, should be alone sometime during the year, some part of each week, and each day. How revolutionary that sounds and how impossible of attainment. To many women, such a program seems quite out of reach.”
“Moon shell…You will remind me that I need to be alone for part of each year, even a week or a few days; and for part of each day, even for an hour or a few minutes in order to keep my core, my center, my island-quality. You will remind me that unless I keep the island-quality intact somewhere within me, I will have little to give my husband, my children, my friends or the world at large.”
“Nothing feeds the center more than creative work, even humble kinds like cooking and sewing. Baking bread, weaving cloth, putting up preserves, teaching and singing to children, must have been far more nourishing than being family chauffeur or shopping at super markets…”
“Evening is the time for conversation. Morning is for mental work…Afternoon is for physical tasks, the out-of-door jobs. But evening is the time for sharing, for communication.”
“What
release to write so that one forgets oneself, forgets one’s companion,
forgets where one is or what one is going to do next…”
“We have so little faith in the ebb and flow of life, of love, of relationships. We leap at the flow of the tide and resist in terror at its ebb. We are afraid it will never return. We insist on permanency, on duration, on continuity; when the only continuity possible, in life, as in love, is in growth, in fluidity – in freedom…”
“…each cycle of the tide is valid; each cycle of the wave is valid; each cycle of a relationship is valid.”
“My life…lacks this quality of significance because there is so little empty space. The space is scribbled on; the time has been filled. There are so few empty pages in my engagement pad, or empty hours in the day, or empty rooms in my life in which to stand alone and find myself….it is not merely the trivial that clutters our lives, but the important as well.”
With those words of wisdom, written 55 years ago and still so poignant for me today, I am stepping offline to spend some time at my "island." Each year since I was an infant, my family has spent part of the summer up in the mountains at a lakeside cabin, accessible by boat or foot only, with no power or hot water.
This summer, our lake time begins tomorrow. My mind, body, and soul cannot wait. While not alone, in the lack of space of the small cabin, there is somehow much more space being set in nature, and I am craving that now.
Have a wonderful week. I have some posts scheduled to appear in this space, but I won't be back with you all for a week and a half or so. Be well...
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