Gift from the Sea: 50th-Anniversary Edition by Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Reeve Lindbergh (Introduction)

50th ANNIVERSARY EDITION ? With meditations on youth and age, love and marriage, peace, solitude, and contentment, here is an inimitable classic that guides us to find a space for contemplation and creativity in our own lives. n nGift from the Sea is like a shell itself in its small and perfect form ... It tells of light and life and love and the security that lies at the heart. --New York Times Book Review n nDrawing inspiration from the the shells on the shore, Lindbergh's musings on the shape of a woman's life will bring new understanding to readers, male and family, at any stage of life. A mother of five and professional writer, she casts an unsentimental eye at the trappings of modern life that threaten to overwhelm us--the timesaving gadgets that complicate our lives, the overcommitments that take us from our families. n nWith great wisdom and insight she describes the shifting shapes of relationships and marriage, presenting a vision of a life lived in enduring and evolving partnership. A groundbreaking work when it was first published, this book has retained its freshness as it has been rediscovered by generations of readers and is no less current today. n nEditorial Reviews n nAmazon Review nI found a 1955 printing of this book in an old waterfront cabin and was struck by the care with which the previous owner had read it. Eve (the name inscribed inside the front cover and then again above the heading for chapter 3) made pencil marks on nearly every paragraph of the book, underlining a phrase, highlighting many passages with strong vertical marks, scratching out some words that she seems to have found superfluous and even x-ing out whole sections that apparently missed their mark with her altogether. Two rusting paper clips isolate several pages, absent any marking at all. Anne Morrow Lindbergh's lyrical words are still relevant and presage so many of the themes of today's most popular books: simplicity, peaceful solitude, caring for the soul, a woman finding her place in society and life. I heard that the woman who had lived in the cabin had actually passed away some time before. Thank you, Eve, for your gift... from the sea. n nReview nGift from the Sea is like a shell itself in its small and perfect form ... It tells of light and life and love and the security that lies at the heart. --New York Times Book Review n nFrom the Inside Flap nmodern-day classic. Gift from the Sea is like a shell itself in its small and perfect form . . . It tells of light and life and love and the security that lies at the heart.--New York Times Book Review. n nFrom the Back Cover nmodern-day classic. Gift from the Sea is like a shell itself in its small and perfect form . . . It tells of light and life and love and the security that lies at the heart.--New York Times Book Review. n nAbout the Author nAnne Morrow Lindbergh was born in 1906. She married Charles Lindbergh in 1929 and became a noted aviator in her own right, eventually publishing several books on the subject and receiving several aviation awards. Gift from the Sea, published in 1955, earned her international acclaim. She was inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame, the National Women's Hall of Fame, and the Aviation Hall of Fame of New Jersey. Mrs. Lindbergh died in 2001 at the age of ninety-four. n nReeve Lindbergh is the author of many books for both adults and children, including the memoirs Under a Wing and No More Words. n nExcerpt. ® Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. nI began these pages for myself, in order to think out my own particular pattern of living, my own individual balance of life, work and human relationships. And since I think best with a pencil in my hand, I started naturally to write. I had the feeling, when the thoughts first clarified on paper, that my experience was very different from other people's. (Are we all under this illusion?) My situation had, in certain ways, more freedom than that of most people, and in certain other ways, much less. n nBesides, I thought, not all women are searching for a new pattern of living, or want a contemplative corner of their own. Many women are content with their lives as they are. They manage amazingly well, far better than I, it seemed to me, looking at their lives from the outside. With envy and admiration, I observed the porcelain perfection of their smoothly ticking days. Perhaps they had no problems, or had found the answers long ago. No, I decided, these discussions would have value and interest only for myself. n nBut as I went on writing and simultaneously talking with other women, young and old, with different lives and experiences--those who supported themselves, those who wished careers, those who were hard-working housewives and mothers, and those with more ease--I found that my point of view was not unique. In varying settings and under different forms, I discovered that many women, and men too, were grappling with essentially the same questions as I, and were hungry to discuss and argue and hammer out possible answers. Even those whose lives had appeared to be ticking imperturbably under their smiling clock-faces were often trying, like me, to evolve another rhythm with more creative pauses in it, more adjustment to their individual needs, and new and more alive relationships to themselves as well as others. n nAnd so gradually, these chapters, fed by conversations, arguments and revelations from men and women of all groups, became more than my individual story, until I decided in the end to give them back to the people who had shared and stimulated many of these thoughts. Here, then, with my warm feelings of gratitude and companionship for those working along the same lines, I return my gift from the sea.