One cannot collect all the beautiful shells on the beach. One can collect only a few, and they are more beautiful if they are few. - Anne Morrow Lindbergh

One cannot collect all the beautiful shells on the beach.

I begin to shed my Martha-like anxiety about many things. Washable slipcovers, faded and old — I hardly see them; I don’t worry about the impression they make on other people. I am shedding pride.

What a circus act we women perform every day of our lives. Look at us. We run a tightrope daily, balancing a pile of books on the head. Baby-carriage, parasol. kitchen chair, still under control. Steady now! This is not the life of a simplicity but the life of a multiplicity that the wise men warn us of.

For life today in America is based on the premise of ever-widening circles of contact and communication. It involves not only family demands, but community demands, national demands, international demands on the good citizen, through social and cultural pressures, through newspapers, magazines, radio programs, political drives, charitable appeals, and so on. My mind reels in it, What a circus act we women perform every day of our lives. It puts the trapeze artist to shame. Look at us. We run a tight rope daily, balancing a pile of books on the head. Baby-carriage, parasol, kitchen chair, still under control. Steady now!