July 2008

July 30, 2008
Double Sunrise
Gift from the Sea-all excerpts and quotes ©Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Is it just me? Or did you find this chapter less than wonderful? It felt to me as tho’ AML was analyzing, preaching a bit, and very much working through her own challenges with relationships. And I felt just fine with letting her have those pages to try to figure it out….and acknowledge that I wasn’t finding many gifts for myself in this chapter.

Or perhaps what I was finding didn’t elate me…and that is why I was unsatisfied with it. Much of what AML concludes I have known for quite awhile-about the natural cycles of relationships.But while I was reading, I did realize that many of my relationships are indeed quite far from the simple, unified, beautiful Double Sunrise phase, all at the same time. My aging mother, my nearly-adult sons, some friendships….hmmmm. But like the beach in the cold winter, there is goodness to be found even in these chilly reflections.

I will be looking for some newness within the relationships I am blessed with….and perhaps some relationships with some people who are new? New to the earth would be the best of all-where have all the babies gone? I am surrounded by large people!

“One comes in the end to realize that there is no permanent pure-relationship and there should not be. “-AML

Indeed. But I am refreshed and strengthened by those “one and only moments” AML writes of, where there is brief return to the the connected, rosy, polished beauty of the Double Sunrise shell.

(photos from a brief but shining visit with my little nephew this winter)

I received a lovely comment a few days ago from a new acquaintance who told me she had discovered my blog in the new issue of Artful Blogging. Now I have known for a few months that The Bower would be one of the many blogs in the Autumn 2008 issue, but I did not know that it was already out in the world…and had not yet received my own advance copy. So the haunting of the mailboxes began-the large, white mailbox at the end of our long driveway and the small post-office box a few miles away in little Walkerton.

But nothing had arrived when we left for Williamsburg yesterday morning for a visit with the accountant. We got home late last night and as my spirits were rather depressed (accountant again!) and it was dark and I was tired, I resisted the urge to peek into the mailbox, choosing to wait until morning, and daylight and cheerfulness. Sweet husband walked to the mailbox as soon as he arose and brought the anticipated parcel to me, still in bed, watching my hazy dreams fade away with the morning light. I hardly had time to remember what he had gone to fetch when I was opening envelope and parcel and perusing the Table of Contents for my name.

I can tell you that I felt a bit like Jo in Little Women…

“Six weeks is a long time to wait, and a still longer time for a girl to keep a secret; But Jo did both, and was just beginning to give up all hope of ever seeing her manuscript again, when a letter arrived which almost took her breath away; for on opening it, a check for a hundred dollars fell into her lap. For a minute she stared at it as if it had been a snake, then she read her letter and began to cry.” -Louisa May Alcott

Although I have never before voiced it and am only recently feeling glimmers of longing to be a published author someday….this is a felicitous beginning. I send out my thanks to Staci Dumoski for her care and kindness during the whole process. It is…amazing…and delightful…to be in the company of such women and their work-all to be found amongst the colorful and papery leaves of this magazine.

And now I have my first hours (nine or ten of them!) alone in almost three weeks. Aahhh….there is much to do, but I can do it in grateful solitude. And I shall be back here sometime tomorrow, fresh from the latest chapter of our book club reading.

Wishing you all a contented day,

Lesley

PS. And welcome to those who have found their way to my post-office-in-the-hedge with the helpful sign-post provided by Artful Blogging!