Just a Warning

Vacation is about to begin. Let's hope I don't cry too much over leaving Jack tomorrow, that we all make it in one piece and I maintain my new not uptight exterior. Oh, and that I remember to capture all of those funny moments, and faces and places with the lens of my camera.

I leave my favorite passages from Anne Morrow Lindbergh's "A Gift from the Sea", a book she wrote while living on the islands I'm visiting.

The Beach is not the place to work; to read, or write or think. I should have remembered that from other years. Too warm, too damp, too soft, for any real mental discipline or sharp flights of spirit. One never learns. Hopefully, one carries down the straw bag, lumpy with books, clean paper, long over-due unanswered letters, freshly sharpened pencils, lists, and good intentions. The books remain unread, the pencils break their points, and the pads rest smooth and unblemished as the cloudless sky. No reading, no writing, no thoughts even--at least not at first....

....The sea does not reward those who are too anxious, too greedy, or too impatient. To dig for treasures shows not only impatience and greed, but lack of faith. Patience, patience, patience, is what the sea teaches. Patience and faith. One should lie empty, open, choiceless as a beach--waiting for a gift from the sea.