A Few Shells . . . Truly, Just a Few

Trips to the grocery store;  meals to cook;  laundry; commuter trains; soccer practice; baseball games; homework; community and social obligations . . . Familiar? Perhaps I even understated your busy schedule.

It was familiar to Anne Morrow Lindbergh, author of Gift from the Sea, which is a compilation of her thoughts during a week she spent on the shore as a refuge from her hectic life. During her vacation, Anne discovered that the tasks she temporarily escaped were not mere tedium.  They were clutter . . . strewn pieces of a fragmented life in which she had lost her center.

There are many words to describe what might or might not be a person’s center.  (Love, spirituality, love and spirituality . . .) There is a constant, however: A center continuously thrives.  It might become lost amid our daily routines, but uncovered, it is who we are.

“Instead of stilling the center, the axis of the wheel,” Anne wrote, “we add more centrifugal activities to our lives – which tend to throw us off balance.”

At the beginning of her vacation, Anne collected shells along the shore. Her pockets became filled with shells of different shapes, sizes, colors, and textures until the weight was cumbersome. How reflective of her life. The over abundance of shells left her besieged, just as the several disjointed parts of her life did.  Through the years, what was extraneous in her life slowly dulled her senses, leaving  her overwhelmed  with a cloud over her center.

Anne began to discard shells – one by one –until she was left with only a few. She released what was superfluous and she was happy. Anne rediscovered her center: “Simplicity; balance of physical, intellectual, and spiritual life . . . Space for significance and beauty . . .  Time for solitude and sharing; closeness to nature . . . creative life and the life of human relationships. A few shells.”

Of course, we must uphold our responsibilities, but we can also contemplate which are necessary and which are not. Perhaps we could, for one year, step down from the PTA; tell our children to choose one sport per season; cook one and only one meal for dinner instead of catering to everyone’s likes and dislikes . . .

When Anne left what became her sanctuary, she held on to her chosen few shells to remind her of her center. She also took with her the knowledge that, paradoxically, one rediscovers her center “when one loses oneself. One must lose one’s life to find it.”

Anne says we constantly face opportunities to rediscover ourselves. But, they go unnoticed and flutter away with the moment in which they came. Anne stresses, however, that we should not look frantically for such opportunities. “We should lie empty, open, choiceless as a beach  . . . waiting for a gift from the sea.”

“Choiceless” – some of us have a myriad of them every day. Which Outfit? Which purse? Desktop or laptop?  PC or Mac? Which search engine? Which cell phone carrier? We are fortunate for our choices, but sometimes – just sometimes – they redirect us from what is truly important. And sometimes, less choice is a relief.

Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s novel is timeless, but especially poignant today as we hurry from task to task. It beckons us to live more simply so we might rediscover our centers, so we might be at peace, so we might be saved. The idea might seem grandiose, especially with today’s demands. Our schools assign more homework to our children than ever, often making it our homework;  our economy demands a dual income in several households; and more.  But, we can still remain open to the idea, open not with fear of vulnerability but rather to a gift from the sea.

By Erin Heffernan

Erin Heffernan is a photographer in Scituate. Her Wink South series, "Shutter to Think", explains how looking at life from a different angle, even if it's via the viewfinder, can offer valuable lessons (and sometimes comic relief!).