I read this book today, sitting on a beach at the lake. While my setting lacked the salt air and the seashells, the waves were still crashing down loudly while I read.
This is a collection of essays or short memoirs written by Anne Morrow Lindbergh, wife of Charles Lindbergh. Each chapter is given the name of a shell, which becomes the metaphor for different stages and struggles of a woman’s life.
Several of her specific examples are dated as this was originally published in the 1950s. For example, she mostly relegates women to childcare and housekeeping; a romantic relationship between a man and a woman is the only kind she can imagine; and, she lists ones forties as a time of middle age when you need to step back and let your children take the lead as they become adults. (I wonder if that would work for my 4-year-old.) But if you can look past this, there are important messages within it for women — perhaps especially mothers — who are still struggling to maintain and form their own independent needs and identity.
The chapter on the Moon Shell resonated the most with me, especially right now as someone who is in the thick of child-raising and homemaking (and really wishing for an actual career again,) and could have been written about how I’ve been feeling for the last few years. Lindbergh speaks of the need for a woman to create her alone time to be able to become the best, most creative version of herself. And she acknowledges what a struggle it is in our society for a woman to be able to unselfishly take that time. It seems that in this respect, not so much has really changed in the last 60+ years.
I’d like to thank the owner of Fair Isle Books on Washington Island in Door County Wisconsin for recommending (and selling me) this book. It was worth reading.