Excerpt from Gift of the Sea:

“When you love someone, you do not love them all the time, in exactly the same way, from moment to moment. It is an impossibility. It is even a lie to pretend to. And yet this is exactly what most of us demand. We have so little faith in the ebb and flow of life, of love, of relationships. We leap at the flow of the tide and resist in terror its ebb. We are afraid it will never return. We insist on permanency, on duration, on continuity; when the only continuity possible, in life as in love, is in growth, in fluidity – in freedom, in the sense that the dancers are free, barely touching as they pass, but partners in the same pattern.

The only real security is not in owning or possessing, not in demanding or expecting, not in hoping, even. Security in a relationship lies neither in looking back to what was in nostalgia, nor forward to what it might be in dread or anticipation, but living in the present relationship and accepting it as it is now. Relationships must be like islands, one must accept them for what they are here and now, within their limits – islands, surrounded and interrupted by the sea, and continually visited and abandoned by the tides.”
Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Gift from the Sea

When I was in my early thirties, I dreamed of going away to the sea by myself to write like Anne Morrow Lindbergh once had. I would rent a cottage by the beach, with the sea breeze blowing through the open windows, lace curtains dancing, and at a silent desk, sit and contemplate life, love, the beauty of being. Just being. And I would write.

Without being an exhausted mom, I would write. Without being a struggling wife, a half-cocked housekeeper, a wiper of noses, and bottoms, and endless messes on the kitchen floor. I would go to the sea for a week or two and write. Perhaps even a month of writing. Gift from the Sea was a gift to me in my thirties. I’ve read this little book a number of times. And each time I read it, I dream of doing it. Slipping away to the sea to write all by myself.

But I have never done this, and now in my forties have lost most of my desire to escape to the sea alone. Maybe because I’m getting old. I don’t see things like I used to. The day Anna died, I aged a century. I never felt old before that, but after Anna’s funeral in a church of stained-glassed windows on a hill overlooking Grass Valley, I looked at myself in the mirror the following morning, and thought where has this old woman come from? She has come from a grave, and it’s in her eyes now, that grave is in her eyes.

You really can wear a hundred years on your face.

But Anna’s dying has taught me something profound and truly beautiful. Something I wish I’d known in my thirties. My twenties. My teens. It has taught me to live a meaningful life with the people I love. I think it’s easy to live without meaning. Without a true north. Without gratitude. We used to make sand angels just because the sand was there and we were at the beach. Now we make sand angels as a reminder of heaven. Because God is real and so are his angels. And Anna sees this heavenly realm every day. I’m so glad I know this now.

And I’m so glad sand angels actually mean something to us now. We have learned meaning through suffering.

“I do not believe that sheer suffering teaches. If suffering alone taught, all the world would be wise, since everyone suffers. To suffering must be added mourning, understanding, patience, love, openness, and the willingness to remain vulnerable.”
Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Gift from the Sea

Lindbergh knew suffering. In the worst possible way, she suffered. Her first child, a cherubic, curly-haired toddler was kidnapped and murdered because of her husband’s fame and fortune. Years later, Lindbergh would make her solo journey to the sea to write.

We took the boys to the sea on the one year anniversary of Anna’s death not to escape life, but to live it.

Throughout the ages the sea has been a refuge for hurting souls. Lost souls searching for their Maker. The sea is so big and powerful. It reminds us we are small and full of need.

Driving over to the ocean on Friday 13th, one whole year after losing Anna, I felt wiped out. The boys talked the whole way over about what they would do at the ocean. The tide pools. Glass beach. The sand dunes.

I kept thinking, how will we do all this? Scott and I are exhausted. We’ve been ramping up for harvest on our farm, and working night and day to get my book on Amazon, and it’s May already. All the crazy end of the school year activities in May. Scott staying up late working on those last assignments for his students, me staying up late working on my novels. And Luke is graduating high school.

We looked at each other in the car driving to the ocean with the boys on Friday, and I know we were both thinking the same thing, how will we do this?

We are so tired.

But we did it.

The boys enjoyed every bit of the gift of the sea, and Scott and I fell into bed at night beyond weary, but happy, listening to the ocean. And for me, one of the highlights of this trip was a prayer.

Our precious friends who own the beach house where we always stay put their arms around me and prayed for God to comfort us and renew my strength and help me be all that God has called me to be: a mom. A wife. A housekeeper. A farmer. A writer. And now an author, too. As they prayed, with the sea breeze blowing against us, I felt the wind of the Spirit refreshing my body, mind, and soul. Just like the sea breeze is real, the Spirit of God is real. Because real refreshment comes from the Lord.

It always has.

It always will.

“Do not wish me happiness
I don’t expect to be happy all the time…
It’s gotten beyond that somehow.
Wish me courage and strength and a sense of humor.
I will need them all.”
Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Gift from the Sea