A Gift from the Sea

I spent some time this evening looking for Anne Morrow Lindbergh's small book Gift from the Sea. I read it the summer I worked as a babysitter in Maine-- the summer that I discovered what a treasure sea glass could be.

I checked the bookshelves, then tried my Kindle. I cannot fathom why this book is not available on Kindle. For shame! I looked online, thinking perhaps I was misspelling the author or title. But no--there it was. Then I went to check the bookshelves again. And I found it, my 88 cent copy--not the one I read in 1973, which lived at that house in Maine, but one I bought later and read again.

I thought that Anne Morrow Lindbergh wrote about sea glass, but my quick look hasn't found that quote. This one will just have to do:

(At the seashore, the mind)begins to drift, to play, to turn over in gentle careless rolls like those lazy waves on the beach. One never knows what chance treasures these easy unconscious rollers may toss up, on the smooth white sand of the unconscious mind; what perfectly round stone, what rare shell from the ocean floor... But it must not be sought for or--heaven forbid!--dug for....The sea does not reward those who are too anxious, too greedy, or too impatient....One should lie empty, open, choiceless as a beach--waiting for a gift from the sea.

I made these earrings at that class I took with my daughter at the Sawmill Center in Cook Forest, PA. The blue sea glass dangles from the shimmery metal. It was once a gift from the sea.