Book in hand, you are taken to the little island home of Anne Morrow Lindbergh. There, she presents to you a few specially collected shells from the nearby sands and explains what each one means to her in regards to life and relationships. You are shown the channeled whelk, the moon shell, the double-sunrise, the oyster bed, and the argonauta. You are taught about the ebbs and flows of living, of your right to discovering yourself, to the multitude of ways relationships can take form, and how to be alone. After, you are treated with an author’s reflection about two decades after the original publishing, allowing her to point out where she feels she went wrong, where she went right, and how her past thoughts apply to herself in a new stage of life.

I was hesitant in reading this book. What pertinent advice or consideration could a somewhat affluent, famous mother from 1950’s spending a holiday at the beach give me, a happily single, paycheck-to-paycheck twenty-something currently exploring life in the tropics? To my surprise, more than I expected. I liked Lindbergh’s consideration and explanations following what could be seen as overly-general information. I also liked her assurance, her “it’s going to work out” attitude that was not without a “but you also have to put in the work” disclaimer.

One or two parts felt outdated, but not in an over the top way, yet to my delight they were somewhat corrected in her 20-years-later reflection. In order to fit with the times, I often substituted “man” and “woman” with “masculine” and “feminine” so that the critique was more on the way our culture views both things rather than on domestic roles, but nevertheless, she is not incorrect as there are indeed differences between the sexes. Granted, and what Lindbergh points out, too, is that the differences does not make one sex weaker or docile while the other strong and in charge, even though society sometimes follows that skewed doctrine. I enjoyed her reconciliation of such parts, specifically in the quote, “Perhaps both men and women in America may hunger, in our material, outward, active, masculine culture, for the supposedly feminine qualities of the heart, mind and spirit– qualities which are actually neither masculine nor feminine, but simply human qualities that have been neglected. It is growth along these lines that will make us whole, and will enable the individual to become the world to himself.”

I found the pace of this book to be appropriate for reflection, the word choice soothing. Although it is short and can easily be read in a number of hours, it feels better to stretch it out a bit more and savor the words that particularly speak to you. Lindbergh writes of a beach getaway of warm solitude and takes the reader with her.

Happy reading,
-Beppa