(Warning: Lauren gets philosophical.)

Pete and I are sore in need of a vacation. Between sickness, work, and other commitments, it’s been a tough season. On Wednesday afternoon, I put the boys down for their naps and eased my own tired limbs into bed with a copy of Gift from the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh, a favorite writer of mine (for literary and historical reasons—she was Charles Lindbergh’s wife). Her small volume is a meditation on life, using the beach and its shells as her primary metaphors. I underlined and starred its yellowing pages, recognizing so much of myself in her descriptions.

“This is an end toward which we could strive—to be the still axis within the revolving wheel of relationships, obligations, and activities… With our garnered free time, we are more apt to drain our creative springs than to refill them. With our pitchers, we attempt sometimes to water a field, not a garden. We throw ourselves indiscriminately into committees and causes. Not knowing how to feed the spirit, we try to muffle its demands in distractions. Instead of stilling the center, the axis of the wheel, we add more centrifugal activities to our lives—which tend to throw us off balance.”

“On the contrary, [a woman] must consciously encourage those pursuits which oppose the centrifugal forces of today. Quiet time alone, contemplation, prayer, music, a centering line of thought or reading, of study or work… It need not be an enormous project or a great work. But it should be something of one’s own… What matters is that one be for a time inwardly attentive.”

“[It is] revolutionary, in fact, because almost every trend and pressure, every voice from the outside is against this new way of inward living.”

(And to think, she wrote this in 1955. Before the Internet, before Facebook-Twitter-Blogger, before text messaging, before cyber-commuting, before cable. Before Target.)

I am notoriously guilty of adding to the “centrifugal forces” spinning around me, and of falling down flat on my derrière as a result. Something in me is finally saying STOP. ENOUGH.

Yesterday, with Anne’s sea imagery still swirling in my head, I made a spontaneous proposition to Pete at lunchtime. “Let’s go to the beach this afternoon. Let’s just go. You go to your meeting and I’ll feed the kids lunch and get them ready, and then we’ll go.” It sounded crazy, but kind of wonderful. After a few minutes of deliberating, we landed on a plan.

“We’re going on an adventure with Daddy,” I told Noah when I picked him up from preschool, giving him no other information. He peppered me with questions throughout the afternoon as we colored pictures and cleaned up the toys. Just the word “adventure” lent an energy to the day that had us both smiling.

By 4:58 p.m., we were staring at this:

And doing this:

(I got all my hair cut off, but that’s another post for another day.)

Even though we told him we weren’t there to swim, Noah plunged into the water up to his waist, laughing and waving his arms. No one has to teach him about living more fully.

After our beach romp it was time for a yummy dinner at J.B.’s Fish Camp, where Pete and I dined on hush puppies and blackened fish sandwiches.

It wasn’t an afternoon of solitude and contemplation, but it was a step in the right direction. Spending time with the people I love the most, talking with Pete in the car, standing in the sand with Jude in my arms and the sea foam tickling my ankles—I could feel the axis of the wheel slowing. Our brief outing was a pocket of pure delight in the midst of a busy season, and all it required was half a tank of gas and a willingness to break from the routine.

That was the gift the sea gave to me.

(P.S. Ladies, I recommend you put this book HIGH on your summer reading list. Toss it in your beach bag, and bring a highlighter!)