Thursday, February 10, 2011

Channeling Anne Morrow Lindbergh

A cottage by the sea
I must write it all out, at any cost. Writing is thinking. It is more than living, for it is being conscious of living.
Anne Morrow Lindbergh

I love Anne Morrow Lindbergh. 

She and I, we both lost our sons very early in our lives. I'd like to think that it was partly her grief that fueled so much great writing. That's exactly what I'm trying to do do here, leaving Manila behind and opting to live by the sea for close to a week to find the inspiration that will give me my second wind on the last leg of writing my thesis about grieving mothers. So help me Anne, and help me God.

I write from the terrace of my little cottage by the sea, under the shelter of towering Talisay trees, listening to the gentle waves at play on the shore just beneath me. I'm on an island in the southern part of the Philippines, in a place that my father used to frequent as a young boy.  The property where this quaint and charming resort stands belongs to the family of my father's boyhood best friend. Both of them are in heaven now. 


I find great solace and inspiration here. In the mornings it is so peaceful and my bedroom faces the sea and each day I wake to a gentle, peach-orange sunrise. Barefoot, I walk out onto the terrace and sit on a rocking chair as I gaze out on a vast and endless sea.


There's something about being by the water that always helps me write. Perhaps I was a mermaid in a previous life? :-)  But always, my best writing is completed when I have solitude by the sea. In the mornings or late afternoons, I take long leisurely walks on the pantalan when everything is quiet. And in the evenings, I have meals with myself under a blanket of skies filled by a thousand stars.


Anne Morrow Lindbergh was spot on when she said -- 
"If you surrender completely to the moments as they pass, you live more richly those moments."  

Ah, there's that word again -- surrender. 

Excuse me now, as take a break from wading through the grief, and surrender to the call of the beach below my window.  See you later...



 

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