remind me that I must try to be alone for part of each year, even a week or a few days; and for part of each day, even for an hour or a few minutes i… - Anne Morrow Lindbergh

remind me that woman must be still as the axis of a wheel in the midst of her activities; that she must be the pioneer in achieving this stillness, not only for her own salvation, but for the salvation of family life, of society, perhaps even of our civilization.

"And so I miss the fertilization that might come from a contact. And for me — yes, I think I might as well admit it — fertilization does come a great deal from contacts. Why then do I avoid them — in a sort of false pride — shyness — timorous modesty? I used to be afraid of falling in love with people — or having them think I was — that I was chasing them (how ridiculous — I am actually always running away!) but now surely — I should be mature enough to be over that. I am no longer afraid of falling in love, and the other false modesties should vanish. I cannot bear to think "par delicatesse j'ai perdu ma vie." (Because of discretion I have lost my life)."

Perhaps middle age is, or should be, a period of shedding shells; the shell of ambition, the shell of material accumulations and possessions, the shell of ego. Perhaps one can shed at this stage in life as one sheds in beach living; one's pride, one's false ambitions, one's mask, one's armor. Was that armor not put on to protect one from the competitive world? If one ceases to compete, does one need it? Perhaps one can at last in middle age, if not earlier, be completely oneself. And what a liberation that would be!

A good relationship has a pattern like a dance and is built on some of the same rules. The partners
do not need to hold on tightly, because they move confidently in the same pattern, intricate but gay
and swift and free, like a country dance of Mozart’s. To touch heavily would be to arrest the pattern
and freeze the movement, to check the endlessly changing beauty of its unfolding. There is no place
here for the possessive clutch, the clinging arm, the heavy hand; only the barest touch in passing. Now
arm in arm, now face to face, now back to back — it does not matter which. Because they know they
are partners moving to the same rhythm, creating a pattern together, and being invisibly nourished by
it.