The gift that keeps on giving

It was my mum who first gave me a copy of Gift from the Sea. Written in the 1950s by writer and mother Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Gift from the Sea celebrates the benefits of alone-time by the ocean. In some ways it feels very much of an era – when a woman’s place was considered to be quite firmly in the home and gender roles much less fluid – but a lot of what Lindbergh writes about balance and restoration and mindfulness feels very current. For a few weeks every year, the author takes temporary leave of her family and stays in a simple beach house on Florida’s Gulf Coast, writing and pottering the shoreline. There, she reflects on what we can learn from the ocean, and how that can energise our writing, or buoy us on busy days back home. Such gems as: ‘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.’ It’s a precious book to me, and I’ve gifted it to friends – especially writer-mother friends – more than any other. And I try to live by it too.

I went on my first solo writing retreat all the way back in 2012. And, apart from in 2014 when my son was born, I’ve gone away to write on my own every year since (something I wrote about a few years ago, for the Royal Literary Fund). These trips have become a vital part of my process and one I’m passionate about, waxing lyrical to every writer friend about it. Amidst the demands of family life, the promise of a few days of solitude by the sea – not weeks, Anne Morrow Lindbergh style – has become my mainstay. Once booked, the date is like a beacon in my diary. No matter what else I’m juggling, knowing I have that retreat booked in – those days of pure writing time, inspiration, and full immersion in the book – is both calming and fortifying.

I always go out of season, when the crowds are long dispersed, and the cost has come down. I seek out tiny spaces, with a particular eye on a good desk. I’ve stayed in a former tin miner’s cottage in the woods of Carbis Bay, a one-time lifeboat station in St Ives, a converted net loft in Mousehole. Last autumn I rented a cottage right on the Harbour Beach in St Ives. At high tide the water almost lapped at the back door and by night the house was full of the sound of the sea. It was the perfect place to hole up and work on The Harbour Lights Mystery, the second book in the Shell House Detectives mystery series (and published a couple of weeks ago). Not least because early one morning, I woke to see lights unfurling in the darkness. I went to the window and watched as the harbourside was rigged for Christmas – the lights tested then dimmed again; dimmed until December, with that sneak peek just for me.

I always feel like my connection to my work-in-progress deepens on these trips. I’m emboldened to ask bigger questions, and more objectively appraise what I’ve done so far. I make sure I put the TREAT in retreat, filling the house with good food, candles, notebooks, take big striding walks by day and hunker down by night. I pack my skateboard or my wetsuit, or both, to blow away the cobwebs. The fact I’ve invested in myself in this way – with time away from family, and spending money too – raises the stakes of the whole venture: I write like there’s no tomorrow. But oh what joy when there IS – and it’s a whole other retreat day too.

The character of Ally in The Shell House Detectives is in part inspired by Gift from the Sea, because her life epitomises the kind of tranquillity and enlightenment that Morrow celebrates. Those words ‘patience’ and ‘faith’ apply to Ally too. She lives in the dunes, in the titular Shell House, a blue-painted weatherboard house with a clear view of the ocean. Ally is a beachcomber and artist. She’s something of an introvert, even more so since her ebullient husband – the well-loved local Sergeant, Bill – died a year ago. Ally takes pleasure in the simple things; she delights in the natural world and lives well. But she’s also conscious that she’s pulled up in her own shell and has a tendency to be distant from others. When she meets Jayden, he changes that. Both adrift in different ways they find themselves drawn to one another, and their investigations result in a friendship that’s transformative for each of them. Ally still enjoys her ocean-side solitude but has a new purpose; one that takes her by surprise sometimes.

In the foreword to Gift from the Sea, the author’s daughter, Reeve Lindbergh, writes ‘I think this freedom is the real reason the book continues to be so well loved and so well read after all these years. I am talking about the freedom that comes from choosing to remain open, as my mother did, to life itself, whatever it may bring: joys, sorrows, triumphs, failures, suffering, comfort and certainly, always, change.’

This is who Ally becomes, thanks to Jayden and their detective work. And it’s what I strive for too.