Anne Morrow Lindbergh (1906 – 2001)
Born Anne Spencer Morrow, was a pioneering American aviator, and the wife of Charles Lindbergh.
Dearly beloved late again!
Yet look again
His horn is free,
Rising above chain, fence, and tree,
Free hymn of love; His horn
Bursts from his tranquil brow
Like a comet born;
Cleaves like a galley's prow
Into seas untorn;
Springs like a lily, white
From the Earth below;
Spirals, a bird in flight
To a longed-for height;
Or a fountain bright,
Spurting to light
Of early morn
O luminous horn!
Here sits the Unicorn
In captivity?
In repose.
Only in growth, reform, and change, paradoxically enough, is true security to be found.
I have come to believe that you can get along without anyone that is, without the close contact of any one person. That is a terrible shock to me, but I think it is true. You do need companionship, but wherever you go, in whatever new environment, you will find people who, to a large degree, take the place of those you left...The intimate companionship goes, I think, when you leave a friend, but friendship stays. It is an inherent possibility of relationship that, once admitted well, there it is.
By and large, mothers and housewives are the only workers who do not have regular time off. They are the great vacationless class.
I believe most people are aware of periods in their lives when they seem to be "in grace" and other periods when they feel "out of grace," even though they may use different words to describe these states. In the first happy condition, one seems to carry all ones tasks before one lightly, as if borne along on a great tide; and in the opposite state one can hardly tie a shoe-string. It is true that a large part of life consists in learning a technique of tying the shoe-string, whether one is in grace or not. But there are techniques of living too; there are even techniques in the search for grace.
Here sits the Unicorn;
Leashed by a chain of gold
To the pomengranate tree.
So light a chain to hold
So fierce a beast;
Delicate as a cross at rest
On a maiden's breast.
He could snap the golden chain
With one toss of his mane,
If he chose to move,
If he chose to prove
His liberty.
But he does not choose
What choice would lose.
He stays, the Unicorn,
In captivity.
When the wedding march sounds the resolute approach, the clock no longer ticks, it tolls the hour
. The figures in the aisle are no longer individuals, they symbolize the human race.
Marriage is tough, because it is woven of all these various elements, the weak and the strong. "In love-ness" is fragile for it is woven only with the gossamer threads of beauty. It seems to me absurd to talk about "happy" and "unhappy" marriages.
Good communication is as stimulating as black coffee, and just as hard to sleep after.
Him that I love, I wish to be
Free
Even from me.
Life itself is always pulling you away from the understanding of life.
I
understand why the saints were rarely married women. I am convinced it has nothing inherently to do, as I once supposed, with chastity or children. It has primarily to do with distractions
Women's normal occupations in general run counter to creative life, or contemplative life or saintly life.
People don't want to be understood I mean not completely. It's too destructive. Then they haven't anything left.
I saw standing against the great stone pillar on more red plush a tall, slim boy in evening dress so much slimmer, so much taller, so much more poised than I expected. A very refined face, not at all like those grinning 'Lindy' pictures a firm mouth, clear, straight blue eyes, fair hair, and nice color. Then I went down the line very confused and overwhelmed by it all. He did not smile just bowed and shook hands.
The wave of the future is coming and there is no fighting it.
The punctuation of anniversaries is terrible, like the closing of doors, one after another between you and what you want to hold on to.
He could leap the corral,
If he rose
To his full height;
He could splinter the fencing light,
With three blows
Of his porcelain hoofs in flight
If he chose.
He could shatter his prison wall,
Could escape them all
If he rose,
If he chose.
I have learned by some experience, by many examples, and by the writings of countless others before me, also occupied in the search, that certain environments, certain modes of life, certain rules of conduct are more conducive to inner and outer harmony than others. There are, in fact, certain roads that one may follow. Simplification of life is one of them.