Out of nowhere, the phrase torn-to-pieces-hood came into my mind, with the recollection that there was a German word for that concept. My teenage son was still in the car with me, as we hadn't yet reached his school, so I asked him to Google it. He was skeptical that there was such a thing — but he quickly discovered the word Zerrissenheit!
It wasn't until a week or so later that I realized that I'd learned about Zerrissenheit from one of my all-time favorite books, Gift from the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh — a re-read of which I had coincidentally (or not-so-coincidentally) already put on my 2017 project list.
I finished that re-read on July 4, and this is the review I posted on goodreads:
Gift from the Sea is one of the few books I've read multiple times. From my early twenties — when, as a recent college graduate living on my own in Los Angeles, I received a copy of the book from my mom — to the present — where my husband and I will soon become "empty nesters" when our son starts college this fall, I've always found relevance and wisdom in Anne Morrow Lindbergh's words. I continue to be amazed that what she wrote in 1955 applies to my life today!Torn-to-pieces-hood, of course, is the antithesis of what I've been seeking during 2017! But it describes well the fragmentation I often feel. The sense of being a sweater that is being systematically unraveled is not one that is new to me — but as we approached the end of 2016, I was definitely feeling the need to find a way to reverse the process of coming apart at the seams.
In Gift from the Sea, Lindbergh asserts that wholeness is not to be found in "more accumulations which supposedly simplify life but actually burden it, more possessions which we have not time to use or appreciate, more diversions to fill up the void."
[We] cannot live perpetually in Zerrissenheit. ... On the contrary, [we] must consciously encourage those pursuits which oppose the centrifugal forces of today. Quiet time alone, contemplation, prayer, music, a centering line of thought or reading, of study or work. It can be physical or intellectual or artistic, any creative life proceeding from oneself. It need not be an enormous project or a great work. But it should be something of one's own. ... What matters is that one be for a time inwardly attentive.I will need to practice this centering process for a long time before I become proficient at it — but for now, every intentional pause in my day, every bit of quiet time I schedule into my week, every conscious effort I make to create, every deliberate rejection of mindless distraction will help me become whole.
Reference
Anne Morrow Lindbergh. Gift from the Sea, Twentieth Anniversary Edition. New York: Vintage Books, 1975.
