Lindbergh 痛苦而幽默地意识到为什么很少圣人是已婚女性：It has to do primarily with distractions. The bearing, rearing, feeding and educating of children; the running of a house with its thousand details; human relationships with their myriad pulls – woman’s normal occupations in general un counter to creative life, or contemplative life, or saintly life. 说得多好，这就难怪我不 creative, 不 contemplative, 不 saintly了。
Lindbergh 说，在海边居住可以学会“放下的艺术”或者说“脱掉的艺术”（the art of shedding）, 首先脱掉clothes, 不必担心穿什么好，放下虚荣（vanity）； 然后脱掉 shelter，不必住多大多好的房子，放下骄傲(pride )；最后脱下面具，放下人际关系中的虚伪（hypocrisy）。 I shall ask into my shell only those friends with whom I can be completely honest… The most exhausting thing in life is being insincere. That is why so much of social life is exhausting; one is wearing a mask…
她还感叹女性的家务劳动没有升职也没有称赞，除了孩子之外，她们的成果通常看不见: we do not see the results of our giving as concretely as man does in his work. 为什么女性这么容易感觉疲劳呢？ 因为她们的付出很多不是 purposeful giving: purposeful giving 不那么容易消耗自身资源，即使损耗，同时也在更新和补充。可惜许多女性 “no longer fed by a feeling of indispensability or purposefulness, we are hungry, and not knowing what we are hungry for, we fill up the void with endless distractions…”
她认为每个女性都应该有独处的时间，每年，每周，每天。工资再低的工人都有周末和法定假日，母亲和家庭妇女是唯一没有休假日的工人。现代化带走了家务劳动中的艺术美感，却保留了费时费力的苦活——和广告宣传的恰恰相反。“the curtain of mechanization has come down between the mind of the hand.”
未完待续……
