Summer afternoon...

"Summer afternoon - summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language" ~ Henry James

Every summer I make it a point to re-read the "Gift from the Sea" by Anne Morrow Lindbergh. Her words are still so relevant today...more than 50 years after they were written. She talks about simplifying your life and how to "remain whole in the midst of the distractions of life; how to remain balanced, no matter what centrifugal forces tend to pull one off center; how to remain strong, no matter what shocks come in at the periphery and tend to crack the hub of the wheel"

Lindbergh recognizes the importance of having "quiet time alone, contemplation, prayer, music, a centering line of thought or reading, of study or work. It can be physical or intellectual or artistic, any creative life proceeding from oneself. It need not be an enormous project or a great work. But it should be something of one's own." For me I find that alone time either with books or with my photography (and my computer).

One of the many reasons that I love summer is that there is empty space on my calendar pages. From September to early June it seems as though there is not a blank square to be found! In "Gift from the Sea" there is a passage that goes "Here there is time; time to be quiet; time to watch the heron...time to look at the stars or to study a shell" This summer if I could give you a present it would be this book...and the gift of time.