Gift From the Sea

Ward Relief Society meet to discuss some of the books we have read. Last Thursday we discussed Gift of the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh. She is the wife of Charles A. Lindbergh. It is a commentary on the feelings of women. She explained in the forward that at first she tho’t she was the only one who felt this way but in discussing it with other women, she found that many, maybe even most, women feel this way. I’m a little better than half way thro’ it right now. So far my favorite chapter is called Moon Shell. She talks of walking along the beach and finding sea shells and she compares the different chambers in them to her life or our lives. She explained in the Moon Shell chapter how giving a woman is. She gives to her husband, her children, her friends and how she needs to be to be alone sometimes to replenish herself. She didn’t mention how when having toddlers it is difficult to even go to the bathroom alone not to mention having some “space” to her self but she gave the same idea in a different way. She mentioned how much easier it is to give of oneself when one has been replenished by reading, writing, or meditating, being alone for even a short time, and how difficult it is to continue to give when one can’t do those things. I really identify with her and her feelings. All of us there could. They mentioned those feelings there but I couldn’t really identify with them at that time because I hadn’t read it yet. As I read it, I tho’t, “Wow! She really explained the way I remember feeling.” Now that my sweet husband has retired and we now spend a lot of time together, he can’t seem to understand why I like to go to my nail appointment or haircut appointment by myself or somewhere else I may need or want to go without him. He calls it our “independent time”. Only he does it with disdain almost, not really understanding. Maybe I’ll encourage him to read that chapter because Anne explains it so much better than I ever could. The chapter I’m reading now is about marriage and togetherness and the love that evolves or matures in a marriage after the “romantic” love has gone. It is very good also. She has much insight. This book was published in 1955 when a woman was still an extension of her husband more or less and not really an individual as we have come to look upon ourselves now days. I wasn’t really anyone but Karl’s wife and my children’s mother until I got my nursing degree. Now I’m not saying that a woman must have a career in order to be an individual instead of and extension of someone else. That is just what it took for me. I was so shy as a child (still am sometimes in certain circumstances) and had such an inferiority complex that it took doing something like that….getting my nursing degree with having four small children and a husband to take care of too….to really find myself and be able to say, “I can do that….” I am really glad I am reading this book. I will finish it today.