Monday, July 13, 2009

The Great Big Summer Slow Down

I can't tell you how much "Gifts From the Sea" by Anne Morrow Lindbergh has spoken to me over these past few days, but maybe by just sharing a piece of it you'll see why. And maybe her words will resonate with you, maybe they won't, but I'll give it a try anyway. She's stirred up some serious thought within me that I hope signifies the beginning of more change. After all, it's inevitable, change, and I've come to see it as very, very good, even if it at first looks otherwise.

For to be a woman is to have interests and duties, raying out in all directions from the central mother-core, like spokes from the hub of a wheel. The pattern of our lives is essentially circular. We must be open to all points of the compass; husband, children, friends, home, community; stretched out, exposed, sensitive like a spider's web to each breeze that blows, to each call that comes. How difficult for us, then, to achieve a balance in the midst of these contradictory tensions, and yet how necessary for the proper functioning of our lives.

~exerpt from "Gifts from the Sea" by Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Balance, peace, playing board games, reading more, watching movies, less knitting, less laundry, fewer dishes, less stuff lying about, more conversations, more sunsets, more laughing, draining tension and worry, more sleep, more writing; these are just some of the things I'm planning. Not necessarily planning on doing but rather on embracing when the opportunity comes my way.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I often picture everything I have to do in circles, and swirling around me, or spinning around. Lovely quote.