Against Wind and Tide: Letters and Journals, 1947-1986

  Sunday your father and I were taken to see, in a nearby cave underneath a friend’s house, a small but quite rich cave in paintings and drawings. I had to translate, like a bad French lesson, while the wife pointed with a stick: “Un autre bison—les cornes, le dos, les pattes postérieures—les pattes antérieures—le ventre,” etc.*

  This was the evening we followed the music to the little bedroom where Anne, in a long plaid wool skirt and sweater, was playing the flute to Julien’s accompaniment on the piano. I realized afterwards that this little interlude was a great relief—since it was one of the few incidents that was not translated. All the time during those two days I had the curious sensation that I was watching something very familiar to me, but all translated into French—into French language, French place, French setting, character, furnishing, etc., like a dream. Never had I seen Anne so gay, so spontaneous, so natural—but all “translated” into French! (Like seeing a familiar play—Midsummer Night’s Dream or A Christmas Carol—“translated” into French!) It gave the two days a curious dream-like quality hard to describe and yet it was not separating as I might have imagined it.

  Anyway, the fifteen or twenty minutes I heard Anne and Julien playing together was neither French nor English but just music and gave me quite a sense of their relationship, almost better than when I listen to them talking (in French) or to Julien talking (in correctly slow English). I could feel: yes, they really are well suited to each other. He gives her strength and solidity. She gives him élan, flight, and a kind of lyricism. In fact, lyrical seems to be a word that comes often to me in connection with this wedding. It was a lyrical occasion.

  The next morning (the Wedding Day) right after breakfast (big steaming bowls of café-au-lait as in Brittany), they all started moving tables around to see how they could get twenty-three people seated at three tables in the living room. Then the village caterers came to set their things up and we went to dress for the wedding. Anne dressed in front of my fire. She had a lovely dress (short) of Venetian brocade, a pale gold-green with an embroidered figure on it—delicate green vines with tiny red flowers. She would not wear wool underwear under it (as I suggested!) and must have kept warm by love alone. The rest of us wore wool dresses or suits and coats (on top of our woolen underwear!). She looked very lovely—rather Botticelli with her blond hair, in that flowered dress. She did wear a coat, black silk quilted with fur around the collar and down the front (sort of a Gay Nineties coat) and red shoes!

  “On y va!”* she shouted from the door, and we all came down and piled into three cars and drove through the little town of Douzillac, past the thirteenth century church to the mairie.† Douzillac is about the size of Bugueles in Brittany, which Jon may remember. There is only one store in it—plastered with banana yellow shutters—on a cobbled street. People were at the doors and windows as we clattered downhill from the church to the mairie. Someone took pictures of Anne (in her hour-glass coat) and Julien in the doorway.

  Inside, a plain bare room with a table in front of the fireplace at which M. le Maire and his secretary stood. M. le Maire put a tricolored ribbon over his portly front and the ceremony began. Someone tried to shut the door of the mairie as it was very cold, but the maire said no, it wasn’t allowed. The door must be left open until the couple were legally married. (In case one of them wanted to escape? Or in case someone came in to protest?) The maire read the civil service, stumbling over the bride’s middle name (“Spenssaire”), and the couple raised their hands in assent.

  When the civil part of the service was over, the door was closed and M. le Maire read a very short little speech of his own. It was quite charming and short. (And, as M. Feydy had remarked at breakfast, “One can be sure of one thing—the Mayor’s speech will be well constructed, because he is a mason!”)

  Then Anne kissed everyone in the room, starting with the Mayor who was delighted, and we all filed out again. Then we all shook hands and climbed back up the cobblestoned street to the cars. The church bell was tolling noon. And we drove back to Les Rieux.

  We finally sat down, about one, to an enormous T-shaped table with Anne at the intersection, Julien on her left and the Mayor on her right, and had a tremendous meal that lasted until five p.m. I don’t quite know how the time passed though we progressed slowly through paté de lièvre (paté of rabbit) to brochet (pike covered with sauce) to dinde aux marrons (turkey with chestnuts) to salade (all with appropriate wines!) to gâteau de mariage (a kind of pyramid of hard caramel-coated cream puffs) set down before Anne. She used huge gardening shears to cut off layers for the guests, handing them out with witty little comments on each person.

  Anne called on various people to speak, or sing. Reeve and Jacqueline sang “Try to remember the kind of September …” It was impossible to think of crying. Anne herself was at her gayest, most happy, most spontaneous.

  I wish you all had been there. And so, I suppose, I had to write you a firsthand account of it—much too long and too hurried but at least to make me feel you were part of it.

  Much love to all,

  Mother Mouse

  Sunday, January 12th, 1964

  Dearest Con,

  Wonderful to get your letter yesterday—so articulate on things that are difficult to be articulate about. I have thought about you every day—been too sleepy at night to stay up to telephone and a bit too hectic daytimes to write (will explain later). But there were so many afterthoughts. I feel we hardly said anything to each other during the wedding days* but communicated on some other inarticulate level. For you sheer exhaustion and for me general unsettledness made communication, except on top levels, impossible.

  No, “one can’t go home again,” and home becomes more and more of a will-of-the-wisp. I think this is new to our generation. Of course Mother had many homes, moved many times (more than Grandma who lived all her life in Cleveland), but still, the concept of a family home was still there, in the mind and in the stones and mortar. Children came back to the family home, lived near parents or returned for vacation. In the second half of your life you knew where you were meant to be and what your function was, to hold down the family home, expecting children to come home to you. This gave root and a purpose to the middle-aged and some sense of security to the young.

  No, one cannot live in old homes, careers, localities, niches. One becomes a ghost with the other ghosts. But the solution of modern apartments (no care, no responsibility, no roots, no patina of the past, and older people being thrown into a young person’s rhythm is wrong, I am sure, and very unfruitful for people of my age) or taking cruises year after year, living homelessly, is no answer. I am only feeling for answers. Somehow, one must retreat into the simpler life, but not a young-marrieds life and setting. (At times, there doesn’t seem to be any other. No place for the aging middle-aged in America.)

  I have always thought work would be the solution: at last, free to work at one’s “career”! It isn’t enough, and one has lost the driving ambition to write a best-seller or make one’s mark in the world. One is beyond it. Gratefully, I note this. One does still have something to say and to give, and to learn. I don’t think it is to be found rushing out and taking a real estate job or even a teaching job (this is better) or jumping into causes. This is all too imitative of the young. It is a reversion to the past. We are bound to lose at that game, and it is not fruitful—no fruit of wisdom will come from it.

  I do think (like E. M. Forster on old age) that wisdom is the fruit of old age and we should cultivate it, treasure it, and dispense it. But how? Maybe writing (some people can—you can write and should write because you are very wise and have lived and watched and studied and served women’s lives, and the life of Mother could offer you an opportunity to put some of this wisdom on paper). Maybe in occasional help, advice, talk, etc. to our children. We have to be perpetually ready to give this—so can’t throw ourselves into competitive careers again (another difficulty).

  I am feeling for another way of showing wisdom??
?perhaps by simply showing the young how to live more fully than they possibly can at the moment. This seems like a contradiction but I don’t think it is. One must live in the smaller circle, much more richly. Cultivate the balance they can’t have: beauty of setting (even if small), richness of friends and conversation, richness of reading, music—all that goes under “culture”—good talk about not the past but the present in art, politics, statesmanship, etc. This can have a profound effect on the young. God knows they need it and if given a chance, relish it. You and Aubrey have done this for Susie and Land—also Jon and Barbara.

  In other words, the family homestead we have to create is now chiefly a spiritual one. It must create and cherish serenity, wisdom, values. This seems, on paper, at first blush, very selfish, very hedonistic, but I think it is healthier than going out looking for distractions or activity or jobs. (The young don’t want us out there.) I do think it is very hard in America with its worship of youth and activity. Other cultures have respected old age, used elder statesmen, revered the grandmother, etc. Also, we no longer have religion to help us. Basically, I think I believe that the second half of life is a preparation for death, not in a rigidly orthodox way of “laying up treasure in heaven,” but in acquiring awareness and acceptance of the life you have led and will leave. What can you hand on as your last gift to Earth?

  Tuesday, still reeling from traveling and weddings, I got a call from the White House from Mrs. Johnson’s secretary. Apparently Look is doing a “spread” on her called “Wifesmanship in the White House” (what a title and word—Grrrr!) and Mrs. Johnson said, “I don’t suppose she’d do it, but the person I’d like best would be Anne Lindbergh.” I was somewhat stunned, and fenced for time and stayed awake all night and wrestled with the idea—writing for a deadline? Interviewing a President’s wife—writing a blurb—a sort of biography—what did they want and could I do it?

  After a day of calling (Margot, Bill Jovanovich [a great help], and Dana), I decided I was interested in writing something but couldn’t write it in a week and would have to have more time. I am scared to death but I am interested. I was very much impressed with Mrs. Johnson when I met her and felt I could talk to her, and feel, somehow, if something intrigues you, you should not turn it down out of fear, lack of confidence, etc. It is, of course, not a world-shaking event, but might be interesting (maybe just impossible—one must take that chance!) and will certainly pull me out of my rut of moving, dismantling, and waiting around for children and husband to turn up and say what they want to do or me to do for them. Perhaps this is why I accepted—grasping at a straw!

  I am thinking of you. Do let’s meet at Washington’s Birthday!

  Love-love

  A.

  Darien

  May 20th, 1964

  Dear Francis,*

  I had a lovely time last night and felt how grateful I was to you for backing me up in it, and carrying it off so exuberantly. I drove home swiftly on the dark uncluttered highways, thinking about you and still talking to you.

  The first observation I made was the thought that you were probably younger than the rest of us, not in experience, mind, etc. but in vigor, hopefulness, spirit, perhaps even physiologically. I have a feeling you’ll live to be a hundred, have another marriage, another life, and enjoy and fume about it all, perhaps long after the rest of us have settled down to philosophical acceptance.

  Then I went on talking to you, lecturing to you really, analyzing—which I really should wait till June 22nd to elaborate, or even the Villa—but I’m afraid it may evaporate by then, so I feel on this clear and blowy spring morning I must jot down a few notes on it (preliminary sallies!).

  Part of the youth is a romanticism. You like to rescue Damsels in Distress. Why, I asked myself, and you, does he think that once he has severed the chains and rescued the damsel from the dragon, that the damsel will be free, or even grateful to him? Damsels (for the most part) get chained because they are weak; they aren’t weak because they are chained. Also why does he think the unchained damsel will turn to him in gratitude and desire? Damsels chained to rocks like dragons; that’s why they let themselves be chained. They like tyrants, and seek them.

  You are not a tyrant. Why should they run to you? You are a strong, normal, sanguine, positive, loving man. If that was what they wanted they would have chosen someone like that in the first place. They’re not looking for someone like you; they’re looking for another dragon and another set of chains.

  You complain that after you have given and given generously of yourself to free them, they don’t give back to you. What have they got to give—these damsels in distress? In the first place, they’re exhausted by the struggle and haven’t the strength to give anything. Then, as I said, they are weak. The weak don’t give—only the strong can give. You keep asking for something from the weak.

  Yes, I know, it looks as though they gave to that dragon. But you are fooled (or romantic). It isn’t giving, it’s self-immolating—a very different thing. If you were a dragon they’d give to you in that way. But you wouldn’t really like it because you don’t like to trample over people. It’s a neurotic kind of giving and wouldn’t fill the hunger in you. It isn’t giving from strength, but giving from weakness, and it doesn’t nourish.

  When you help the strong, they can use it and help themselves and give you something back. The weak don’t really want to be helped; they want to complain. They want eternally to be chained to that rock so that they will incite the pity and attention and nobility of the brave prince—so they can cry on his shoulder and be always certain of a shoulder and of attention. But they don’t want to be freed. If they are freed, they look for another rock and another dragon—not for a prince.

  Moral? You are wasting your time rescuing damsels in distress? I can’t quite be that cynical or didactic. I know this is all very much off the top of my head and dangerously oversimplified. You have to help them because it’s your nature and makes you what you are—or at least, expands what you are. All giving enlarges the heart and helps the giver, whether the recipient is permanently helped or not. Probably the unrealistic quality comes in expecting something in return—some action or initiative on their own, some kind of equal giving on their part, some kind of equal relationship you are looking for. Probably you should expect nothing. This perhaps is cynical of me, but you see this in the business world because you once talked to me about it in terms of a loan of money someone made to help a friend that never bore any fruit. Why does it bother him so? you said. Why did he expect anything from it? Most of the time this is the case. One gets used to it.

  (In the personal realm, you have not got used to it, and you do still expect results, and you do feel let down when they don’t produce something.)

  Now let me be plain in saying: all friends to whom one loans money do not let one down; they produce something. They pay back the world at least what has been given them. This is true in the personal emotions field too. Distressed damsels can change (with analysis, help, time, suffering, love and effort) their pattern. The weak can be strengthened. People do become wiser, learn something. But these damsels are in a minority, just as the people to whom you lend money and are able to fructify it are in a minority. (Or perhaps you don’t agree with me?)

  It’s excruciatingly difficult to change one’s pattern. You also know this. You’ve said to me hundreds of times, “he’s not going to change,” of some dragon. What makes you say this with such certainty and yet cling so desperately to the illusion that the damsel can change? She’s usually just as irrevocably tied. Sometimes—a crack!—she’s aware. Awareness can lead to self-knowledge, reorientation, and learning to walk again. But don’t think it can be done simply by severing the chains, or by exhorting the distressed from the shoreline.

  It is more like the ordeal of the little mermaid who learned to be an earth maiden, but every step she took was as if walking on knives.

  There is, of course, the final question: why do you want to rescue
damsels in distress? But this I couldn’t dream of suggesting an answer for. Besides, perhaps it’s impertinent. Perhaps the whole letter is. It isn’t meant to be, but grows out of a very real and deep feeling about and concern for you. Take it as that and ruminate about it in off hours. We can talk in a more leisurely and rational way—in Balbienello—or the chalet.

  My love and thanks always—

  Anne

  P.S. I am well aware that a lot of this can be said back to me. I know … I can see myself in the mirror. All I can say is, life is easier to write than to live, or to see. But seeing helps. One then makes some efforts to change the patterns, one realizes the patterns are of one’s own choosing, and one doesn’t blame others for them. One is less likely to feel abused and perhaps a little freer to adapt within the pattern—to change it a little and not be frozen in it!

  Chalet Les Monts-de-Corsier

  July 8th, 1964

  Dearest Jon,

  I am terribly glad and relieved to learn through my friend in Vevey who had seen it in a newspaper that your experiment* in living three hundred (?) feet underwater has proved a success and is over. Not that (I suppose) there won’t be more experiments! You, with your inventive genius and spirit of adventure, will, in all probability, not be through with new explorations in this pioneer field. Your father assures me that, though it is a dangerous field, you are at the top of it and you take very good precautions, as well as being extremely experienced—as experienced as anyone in this new field. Nevertheless, I am glad this one is over. I know no details. We have been in Europe just a week, three days in Paris where we saw the enclosed clipping about what you were about to do.