Gift from the Sea

by Anne Morrow Lindbergh

I read this book for the Something About Me Challenge. It's one of Alisonwonderland's selections. This review could take pages of 'internet paper' if I wrote all the meaningful quotes I've marked in the book. I'm really glad I chose to read this book. Thanks, Alison for the great suggestion.

Lindbergh takes a needed break from her hectic life to the solitude of a small beach cabin. There she gathers shells and ponders how their design signifies stages in a woman's life. Gift From the Sea is reflective, contemplative journal writing that Lindbergh edited to share with the world.

There are passages galore that spoke to me with their beautiful simplicity and sage wisdom. Words that reaffirmed my beliefs and self-concepts. Others that caused my thinking to grow beyond its bonds. I enjoy that feeling of stretching and growth.

I read a library copy and now will have to buy my own so I can transfer my bookdarts and leave them in place. Books like this are great to have on my bedside table and open up and randomly read passages I've marked.

This quote helped me to identify for myself one reason I like to travel and be away from home on my vacations. "The past and the future are cut off; only the present remains. One lives like a child or a saint in the immediacy of here and now. People become like islands in such an atmosphere, self-contained, whole and serene."

Here's a feeling we can all identify: "What we fear is not so much that our energy may be leaking away through small outlets as that it may be going 'down the drain.'"

"Purposeful giving is not as apt to deplete ones resources; it belongs to that natural order of giving that seems to renew itself even in the act of depletion. The more one gives, the more one has to give."

One of my favorite discussions in the book was that of romantic love. Such moments are fleeting, but valid and can be revisited. Feelings of love ebb and flow just as life, energy and seasons do. Too many panic when the honeymoon ends and real life creeps in and the romance thins. Romance and love need to be kindled and cherished.

I highly recommend this book that still speaks wisdom over 50 years after being written. It's a sweet, gem of a book.