Lindbergh describes the first shell that she finds and collects by the shore. This is the deserted shell of a whelk, a small “snail like creature” (27), which was then used by a hermit crab as a home before it, too, abandoned the shell. She says, “It is simple; it is bare; it is beautiful” (28), and she contrasts her own life with these qualities of the shell. Unlike the shell, her life is untidy and complicated. As Lindbergh explains, she has a husband, five children, work in the form of writing, friends, and the obligations of being a good citizen and being part of her community. She wants to nurture and succeed in her relationship to all these things. However, Lindbergh states that first, and as a means to nurturing these other aspects of her life, she wants to “achieve a state of inner spiritual grace” (29). This means, in non-theological language, achieving a state of harmony and inner peace in her life. She also notes that certain environments and rules of conduct are more conducive than others to cultivating this harmony and grace. Simplicity of living is one of these environments.

Unfortunately, being a wife and a mother in 1950s America involves “a whole caravan of complications” (31).