Against Wind & Tide

I’m reading in pieces Against Wind and Tide -Letters & Journals 1947-1986 of Anne Morrow Lindbergh
Even getting a few minutes to read a letter or two -let alone write this post- feels a bit like sailing against wind and tide;)

My favorite letter so far is to her daughter Reeve after she has a baby and Reeve is worried she’ll never have time to write again.

In her letter, March 12, 1972 p. 266, Anne  lists several great women writers and points out {to comfort Reeve} that none of them had children.

“A woman writer is, to quote a nineteenth century writer, ‘rowing against wind and tide.’”

She mentions a critic who once said that she had a promising start as a writer but published so little in 40 years of marriage. She says of this to Reeve:

“He is of course, right and it still bothers me: the books I didn’t write. In fact, I don’t consider myself ‘a writer’ but a woman who sometimes wrote. And it isn’t just being a woman. It is some deeper conflict between art and life….So how much one writes, or in what form one writes, or how soon one writes isn’t the most important thing. One has to live one’s life and follow one’s thrust, whatever it is.”

SO great.

I love what she says a few pages earlier {p. 265}  too, “I wish you could read the diaries I am now working on where I say the same things harshly, to myself. ‘You say you want to write but what have you ever done to show for it?’ etc. I was then expecting my second baby and was very gloomy and self-castigating about everything. {“What have I ever done but take -take-take all my life- never given back,” etc.} But I was carrying a baby and that is not a good time to write; you are putting everything creative into a child. The same is true for you now. You should not be trying to write now- at least not anything structured like a novel or a short story. There is, as you say, not enough time for a sustained effort and too much time for self-criticism. For heaven’s sake, don’t make this a test period. You are nursing a baby, which takes a lot of energy and is a time of wordless communication. And you are recovering from the nine months of pregnancy-and now the change back to “normal life” which isn’t quite normal yet.” 

They are letters of such warmth and so generous of Reeve to share these with the world.  AML gives her daughter great practical advice for how to find her voice, being kind to herself, giving herself space. She tells her to stop reading others or to read something totally unlike anything she would like to write in order to avoid comparing herself to others. She tells her to try jotting down ideas and images as she nursed instead of longer involved pieces.

“Just a little- scraps-every day, a diary or a record of the baby or anything trivial – but of the day, of where you are now. This is not to produce anything. It is just practice in being aware and will show you how much you observe, see, feel and can articulate….Don’t try to make it a continuous record-just jottings down, scraps, observations: the birds, the cats, the snow, Molly and people.  I think if you do it steadily but not obsessively, you will find you enjoy it and you will eventually find your own voice. It might not even be a notebook – just a folder with scraps of ideas in it.  It’s the daily putting down of observations that helps you to feel where you are. It’s going against the grain to try to be anywhere the you are not.” p, 266

That’s the best writing advice I’ve ever read and so much of what this blog and little private instagrams to share with just my family have been for me: staying creative in little post-it note sized snippets. If I don’t have some outlet, I start to feel like a very heavy whale, sinking to the bottom of the sea. I have to surface for creative air now and again. But some days the wind blows hard and the tide is coming in fast and I just have to ride it out.

And the ride is 100% worth it.