A Gift

I’ve been reading the Anne Morrow Lindbergh book, Gift from the Sea. It is a pretty little book that I saw when I was shopping with my mom last summer. Although she can’t afford such things, mom bought it for me and said it was for my birthday. I have been admiring the pale blue cover for several months, but hadn’t made the time to try to read it. Oh, I had picked it up and read a bit here and there, but never giving it my undivided attention. I’m not sure why I always seem to be multi-tasking, but I think has a little to do with the lifestyle I’ve created – and the fact that the Internet is making us all stupid. We are all getting used to working, surfing, emailing and checking social networks so often that we seem to have forgotten how to do one single thing at a time – like read a book.

Well, for my Human Relations class one of the projects is that we can read a book about relationships. I am now giving Mrs. Lindberg’s ‘gift’ my undivided attention. I call it a gift because it is beautiful. It has taken me by surprise and some of the passages almost take my breath away. I could never hope to write a book now because the best one has already been written. This little journal entry of mine is not a book review, although I will have to write a review for my class. This is just a side-note about a thought I had while reading this morning.

I’m also taking a math class this quarter. It has pretty much consumed me for the past 2 weeks, to the point of tears many times. So, while I was intending to clear my mind of algebra while reading “Gift from the Sea,” it managed to sneak in just a little, but in a better way. It was the following passage:

“…how does one learn this technique of the dance? Why is it so difficult? What makes us hesitate and stumble? It is fear, I think, that makes one cling nostalgically to the last moment or clutch greedily toward the next. Fear destroys “the winged life.” But how to exorcise it?  It can only be exorcised by its opposite, love. When the heart is flooded with love there is no room in it for fear, for doubt, for hesitation.”

I guess my thought was how like algebra it is; you can only solve the problem of fear by using the opposite, love. It sounds a little silly now, but it is the silly little things that get me through the difficult days of homework and all of this learning I have to do.  I know I would be learning anyway, whether I still had my job or had found another before deciding to go to college. Somehow I tell myself this is harder, but maybe it isn’t. Maybe this will turn out to be the best gift I could have given myself.