Gift from the Sea II - a book review
We finished off the first half of the review with the double-sunrise stage. Everything is blissful and special here, we need to nurture and appreciate such a stage because it cannot last forever - nothing ever does. And in many ways this is a good thing, things can’t stagnate, they keep on evolving and we carry on adapting.
This is where the oyster stage begins.
Oyster Bed
Not many of us like change, rather we prefer continuity of some kind. Even when it comes to marriage, Lindbergh notes this is what we hope or expect. But there are different types of continuity - as there are different kinds of shells.
She picks the oyster shell to describe the middle years of marriage.
“It suggests the struggle of life itself. The oyster has fought to have that place on the rock to which it has fitted itself perfectly and to which it clings tenaciously. So most couples in the growing years of marriage struggle to achieve a place in the world. It is a physical and material battle first of all, for a home, for children, for a place in their particular society. In the midst of such a life there is not much time to sit facing one another over a breakfast table.”
One recognises the truth of Saint-Exupéry’s - ‘Love does not consist in gazing at each other but in looking outward together in the same direction’. We are both looking and working outward at most points in our life. The oyster, like us, forms ties, creates roots, and develops a firm base. These are very similar to the bonds of marriage too. Even our love changes over time, which does not mean that it diminishes, it simply grows.
The oyster itself is beautiful in a different kind of way - it is humble and awkward. But though it is homely and comforting it is not the last stage of marriage. This is the coming of space, which we mustn't be afraid of.
Argonauta
The Argonauta (Paper Nautilus) is actually a cradle for the young, which the mother Argonauta holds as she floats to the surface, where the eggs hatch and the young swim away. The mother too, leaves her shell and starts a new life. This is very much a temporary dwelling.
It is light-weight, delicate and fragile, but quite beautiful.
“Can we middle-aged argonauts when we outgrow the oyster bed, look forward to the freedom of the nautilus who has left its shell for the open seas? But what does the open sea hold for us? … But with this rare and delicate vessel, we have left the well-tracked beaches of proven facts and experiences. We are adventuring in the chartless seas of imagination.”
This is the chance for a new kind of adventure, a new kind of bond, a new relationship. Our relationships progress from being limited, functional and dependent to this space in which the two can enjoy themselves and appreciate the whole journey - “the meeting of two whole fully developed people as persons”. According to the Scottish philosopher MacMurray, a fully personal relationship is ‘a type of relationship into which people enter as persons with the whole of themselves. Personal relationships have no ulterior motive. They are not based on particular interests. They do not serve partial and limited ends. Their value lies entirely in themselves and for the same reason transcends all other values. And that is because they are relations of persons as persons’.
Rilke describes something similar when he talks about a state in which there is space for freedom and growth, in which each partner may release the other - ‘a relation that is meant to be of one human being to another...And this more human love (that will fulfil itself, infinitely considerate and gentle, and good and clear in binding and releasing) will resemble that which we are with struggle and endeavour preparing, that love that consists in this, that two solitudes protect and touch and greet each other’.
Such a stage is not easy to reach and it isn’t necessarily a given either. One has to be whole in themselves before being able to see the other in the same light, so that means that we have to look at ourselves and accept it all, we have to really know ourselves. We must learn to stand alone. Then only can we really and truly stand with another.
He who bends to himself a joy
Doth the wingèd life destroy;
But he who kisses the joy as it flies
Lives in Eternity’s sunrise.
William Blake
We must learn to dance.
A Few Shells
Different shells resemble different stages of our life. They are also a lovely thing to carry around, a reminder of the beach and the sea. One shell might be enough, but we usually enjoy picking up all the ones that catch our eye. Eventually we keep only the ones that really matter.
What quality does my life embrace?
What significance does it have?
What beauty lies within it and without?
What spaces does it hold?
What makes me feel content?
“The multiplicity of the world will crowd in on me again with its false sense of values. Values weighed in quantity, not quality; in speed, not stillness; in noise, not silence; in words, not in thoughts; in acquisitiveness, not beauty. How shall I resist the onslaught? How shall I remain whole against the strains and stresses…?”
Shells become our island eyes.
The Beach at my Back
Once we have the beach at our backs, we have not left it completely, it is always somewhere in our minds.
The here, the now, and the individual are some of the most important aspects of our life, in which we can find joy too.
“The waves echo behind me. Patience - Faith - Openness, is what the sea has to teach. Simplicity - Solitude - Intermittency … But there are other beaches to explore. There are more shells to find. This is only a beginning.”
This book gives me courage and it also allows me to find much more comfort in writing, and writing my thoughts most importantly.
