The beach is not the place to work; to read, write or think. I should have remembered that from other years. Too warm, too damp, too soft for any real mental discipline or sharp flights of spirit. One never learns. Hopefully, one carries down the faded straw bag, lumpy with books, clean paper, long over-due unanswered letters, freshly sharpened pencils, lists and good intentions. The book remains unread, the pencils break their points and the pads rest smooth and unblemished as the cloudless sky. No reading, no writing, no thoughts even–at least, not at first.
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Yesterday morning I purchased a new copy of Gift from the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh (AML). The book, a beautiful collection of essays, left a very strong impression on me when I first read it sixteen years ago. For some reason I remembered the book last week and was determined to reread it while I was still on Nantucket. So yesterday afternoon as we were off to the beach I placed the book into my beach bag hoping to find enough peace to read a few paragraphs.
I opened the book, read through the introductions and as I began the first essay – The Beach – I laughed out loud. The very first paragraph (see above) completely described me. It felt as if AML had read my mind.
Every summer I pack a selection of books I should read – some years they are ambitious classics like Vanity Fair and other years I include education related titles. This year I packed The Academic Achievement Challenge: What Really Works in the Classroom? by Jeanne S. Chall and Einstein Never Used Flash Cards by Kathy Hirsh-Pasek and Roberta Michnick Golinkoff. These are books I truly want to read, but for some reason the bindings remain as tightly closed as the day I bought the books.
This year I also brought along my plan book in order to type last year’s plans into a digital plan book for this upcoming year. I was excited to work on my digital scrapbooks – I take a lot of photographs. And right before we left I made sure that all our family videos from the last few years were uploaded to my computer so I could make movies. How very ambitious of me. Just like my books, nothing has been touched.
AML brought along paper and pencils. I brought my computer. The tools have changed but the good intentions and the lack of results are the same.
I always plan to accomplish so much while I am here on Nantucket, but my plans are quickly abandoned. Landlocked the other 11 months of the year, I delight in my time on the beach – the beautiful blue skies, the warm sand, the cold water, the briny air.
All five senses are on alert, taking in every aspect of being on the beach.
Then my soul takes a big deep breath and slowly lets it out.
I am rejuvenated.
I am calm.
I am at peace.
There is no need to lose myself in a book because I am present
on this beach
right now.
[…] from our walk I settled into my chair to read Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s (AML) Gift from the Sea. I was feeling her connection to the sea so strongly that day, which isn’t difficult since […]