The Place of Tides: A Journey to the Land of the Eider Duck and a Life-Changing Encounter with the Women Who Gather the Birds’ Precious Down on Remote ... the acclaimed author of The Shepherd’s Life

by James Rebanks

Ours is a dark and chaotic world. We are all in need of lights to follow.

Our lives are a series of choices – about what we do, and don’t do. Over time we decide what to let go of, what must die, and what we will fight to keep alive.

She had recognized that she had a choice: either to conform and be what everyone else wanted, or to step into the unknown and do what her heart said was right.

Anna’s life here was, I was coming to see, devoted to paying attention to – or, more than that, being completely committed to – the beauty of the world before her. She seemed to have done it by cultivating an extraordinary form of independence from other people, their values, and their noise. She used every ounce of her wilfulness to shut out the world and concentrate on these simple things.

This way of living demanded a loss of self, a surrendering to the rocks, rain, wind, and tides.

focus on this world instead, on what is, not on what you think about it.

I had been drawn to Anna because she seemed heroically tough – and she was tough, but her real superpower was forgiveness. She knew that a life full of other people meant accepting their weaknesses and still being there for them.