It's been a little weird not teaching. I'm thoroughly enjoying my break, but it often feels like I'm not doing enough, or that I'm doing things too slowly. Before we left for Portland, I asked my sister-in-law about what she did when her husband had an internship and she was staying at home. "I went to the library," she said, "sometimes multiple times a week. Take advantage of this precious time where you can fill your cup." I'm taking her advice - I got my library card on Monday and I was pretty excited about it. It felt so good to be in a library again, to have complete choice on the books that were to be my companions for the upcoming days and weeks. I got two books: Seventh Son by Orson Scott Card, and Gift from the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Charles Lindbergh's (the pilot's), wife. Since I'd already read Seventh Son before (I wanted to re-read it since I'd like to finish the series this summer - it's my dad's favorite), I decided to start with Gift from the Sea - a book recommended to me by a friend. In this short (only 128 pages) but profound book, Anne Lindbergh shares her reflections about different aspects and stages of a woman's (and to a certain extent a man's) life. I found it remarkable that even though there are many elements about women's lives that have changed dramatically since this book was written (1955), there are nevertheless so many of her ideas that still ring true. I'll include some of my favorite excerpts here, but that shouldn't stop you from reading it yourself!
Favorite quotes:
"...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. War, prison, survival periods, enforce a form of simplicity on man. The monk and the nun choose it of their own free will. But if one accidentally finds it, as I have for a few days, one finds also the serenity it brings."
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| So excited about my books! |
"...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. War, prison, survival periods, enforce a form of simplicity on man. The monk and the nun choose it of their own free will. But if one accidentally finds it, as I have for a few days, one finds also the serenity it brings."
"Nothing feeds the center so much as creative work, even humble kinds like cooking and sewing."
"Woman's life today is tending more and more toward the state William James describes so well int he German word, 'Zerrissenheit, [or] torn-to-pieces-hood.' She cannot live perpetually in "Zerrissenheit." She will be shattered into a thousand pieces. On the contrary, she must consciously encourage those pursuits which oppose the centrifugal forces of today. Quiet time alone, contemplation, prayer, music, a centering line of thought or reading, of study or work. It can be physical or intellectual or artistic, any creative life proceeding from oneself. It need not be an enormous project or a great work. But it should be something of one's own. Arranging a bowl of flowers in the morning can give a sense of quiet in a crowded day - like writing a poem, or saying a prayer. What matters is that one be for a time inwardly attentive."
"[Woman] must find that inner stillness which Charles Morgan describes as 'the stilling of the soul within the activities of the mind and body so that it might be still as the axis of a revolving wheel is still.' This beautiful image is to my mind the one that women could hold before their eyes. This is an end toward which we could strive - to be the still axis within the revolving wheel of relationships, obligations, and activities."
"One learns to accept the fact that no permanent return is possibly to an old form of relationship; and, more deeply still, that there is no holding of a relationship to a single form. This is not tragedy but part of the ever-recurrent miracle ot life and growth. All living relationships are in the process of change, of expansion, and must perpetually be building themselves new forms. But there is no single fixed form to express such a changing relationship. There are perhaps different forms for each successive stage; different shells I might put in a row on my desk to suggest the different stages of marriage - or indeed of any relationship."
"...marriage, which is always spoken of as a bond, becomes actually... many bonds, many strands, of different texture and strength, making up a web that is taut and firm. The web is fashioned of love. Yes, but many kinds of love: romantic love first, then a slow growing devotion and, playing through these, a constantly rippling companionship. It is made of loyalties, and interdependencies, and shared experiences. It is woven of memories of meetings and conflicts; of triumphs and disappointments. It is a web of communication, a common language, and the acceptance of lack of language, too; a knowledge of likes and dislikes, of habits and reactions, both physical and mental. It is a web of instincts and intuitions, and known and unknown exchanges. The web of marriage is made by propinquity, in the day to day living side by side, looking outward and working outward in the same direction.. It is woven in space and in time of the substance of life itself."
"Perhaps both men and women in America may hunger, in our material, outward, active, masculine culture, for the supposedly feminine qualities of heart, mind and spirit - qualities which are actually neither masculine nor feminine, but simply human qualities that have been neglected."
