Anne Morrow Lindbergh (1906 – 2001)
Born Anne Spencer Morrow, was a pioneering American aviator, and the wife of Charles Lindbergh.
Rollers on the beach, wind in the pines, the slow flapping of herons across sand dunes, drown out the hectic rhythms of city and suburb, time tables and schedules. One falls under their spell, relaxes, stretches out prone. One becomes, in fact, like the element on which one lies, flattened by the sea; bare, open, empty as the beach, erased by todays tides of all yesterdays scribblings.
We must relearn to be alone.
I kept looking at the flowers in a vase near me: lavender sweet peas, fragile winged and yet so still, so perfectly poised, apart, and complete. They are self-sufficient, a world in themselves, a whole perfect. Is that then, perfection? Is what those sweet peas had what I have, occasionally in moments like that? But flowers always have it poise, completion, fulfillment, perfection; I only occasionally, like that moment. For that moment I and the sweet peas had an understanding.
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.
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.
The punctuation of anniversaries is terrible, like the closing of doors, one after another between you and what you want to hold on to.
The wave of the future is coming and there is no fighting it.
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.
People don't want to be understood I mean not completely. It's too destructive. Then they haven't anything left.
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.
Life itself is always pulling you away from the understanding of life.
Him that I love, I wish to be
Free
Even from me.
Dearly beloved late again!
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.
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!
The sea does not reward those who are too anxious, too greedy, or too impatient. To dig for treasures shows not only impatience and greed, but lack of faith. Patience, patience, patience, is what the sea teaches. Patience and faith. One should lie empty, open, choiceless as a beach waiting for a gift from the sea.
Here sits the Unicorn
In captivity?
In repose.
I have been overcome by the beauty and richness of our life together, those early mornings setting out, those evenings gleaming with rivers and lakes below us, still holding the last light. ... Those fields of daisies we landed on, and dusty fields and desert stretches. Memories of many skies and earths beneath us many days, many nights of stars.
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.