"Argonauta"

Kona-Kohala coast, Hawai'i

  

 “Argonauta”

Excerpt from “Gift From The Sea” 

by Anne Morrow Lindberg

On this island I have had such a glimpse into the life of the Argonauta.

After my week alone I have had a week of living with my sister. 

I will take from it one day.

I shall examine it, set it before me as I have set the shells on my desk.

I shall turn it around like a shell, testing and analyzing its good points.

Not that my life will ever become like this day – a perfect one plucked out of a holiday week; there are no perfect lives. The relation of two sisters is not that of a man and a woman. But it can illustrate the essence of relationships.

The light shed by any good relationship illuminates all relationships. And one perfect day can give clues for a more perfect life – the mythical life, maybe, of the Argonauta.

We wake in the same small room from the deep sleep of good children, to the soft sound of wind blowing through the casuarinas trees and the gentle sleep-breathing rhythm of waves on the shore.

We run bare-legged to the beach, which lies smooth, flat,

and glistening with fresh wet shells after a night's tides.

The morning swim has the nature of a blessing to me, a baptism,

a rebirth to the beauty and wonder of the world.

We run back tingling to hot coffee on our small back porch.

Two kitchen chairs and a child’s table between us fill the stoop on which we sit. With legs in the sun we laugh and plan our day.