On re-reading Gift from the Sea

I came across Gift from the Sea several years ago, when I was visiting our cousins in Sequim.  Usually, when I am visiting friends or family, I only bring along reading material for the transportation part of the trip.  Once ensconced in my guest room, I start roaming the bookshelves, awaiting that serendipitous moment when the things that interested my hosts will capture me as well.  In many cases, the title that grabs me is something I've read before, or something that I've been meaning to read.  Agatha Christie, An Omnivore's Dilemma, A Natural History of the Senses, Into the Wild.....you get the picture.  But Gift from the Sea was a true serendipitous discovery.  I picked it up because I was near the ocean, visiting a house that sat on a bluff over looking the Straits of Juan de Fuca.  From the opening line, I was hooked.

Yes, I agree, the beach is the place for contemplation, renewal, simplifying.  From Siddhartha to Alix Kates Shulman, people have gone to water to think, to empty their minds, to figure things out.   Why not me?  I am not a writer, a creator, a guru, a bodhisattva.  I'm just a 20th century middle-class middle-aged white American female, but I can identify.  I can empty my mind with the best of them.

But actually, I cannot.  I almost resent people who can meditate, people who have enough self-hood to realize that time spent within is time well spent.  I will sit cross-legged in the center of a labyrinth, hands upturned on my knees, eyes closed, listening to my thoughts, waiting for a thought-gift to take back out.  And my mind distracts towards the shuffling feet of other pilgrims, I think about what I need to do next, I think about the time I am wasting.

So, I don't meditate.  And, I have not had the energy to read, lately.  The books are stacked up on my bedside table, and I do dip into them, but they are mainly an escape into the familiar, the methodology of my going-to-bed ritual.  I read until the words blur and the book drops out of my nerveless hand.  I jerk awake for a moment, set the book back, take off my glasses, turn off the bedside lamp, curl up, turn off my thoughts.  

The other day, however, I picked out Gift from the Sea from my newly-organized bookshelves.  It's a tiny book, so it sits in the overflow stack at the front of the spine-out non-fiction, easy to grab.  I took it out to the shedroom for my night-time read,  and I was hooked again.  She writes about about the multiplicity of our lives, about the demands on our focus and being.  Yes.  I am the hub of the wheel, attention and energy focused outward.  If I don't tend to the center, the spokes start wobbling, the wheel is unbalanced.  There are days when I don't have the energy to tie a shoelace.  Yes.

I want what she had, an island to escape to, a place to simplify the duties and demands, to true up my wheel.  Where is my goddam island?!

Years ago I read an Madeline L'Engle book where the sensitive, wounded heroine escapes to a Greek island.  She is surrounded by artists, fellow sensitives, who adore her and support her.  It was typical L'Engle, escapist and self-indulgent.  I used to identify with her heroines, but now all I can think is, what a whiny thing.  Real people can't escape to islands.  They have to deal with the abusive husband, work with him or leave him.  They have to earn a living and do the laundry, paint the walls, walk the dog.   They have to take care of business.

But isn't part of the business of life to attend to the core?  Isn't there a way to find that space and time, to create that island?

I.  Want. My. Goddam. Island.  
Now.