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The House by the Sea
This is the first journal Sarton wrote after she moved in 1973 from New Hampshire to the seacoast of Maine. Here she found the peace and aloneness she sought―and partly feared. The journal records the renewing of her life and work in this place.
290 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1977
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About the author
May Sarton
145 books602 followersMay Sarton was born on May 3, 1912, in Wondelgem, Belgium, and grew up in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Her first volume of poetry, Encounters in April, was published in 1937 and her first novel, The Single Hound, in 1938. An accomplished memoirist, Sarton boldly came out as a lesbian in her 1965 book Mrs. Stevens Hears the Mermaids Singing. Her later memoir, Journal of a Solitude, was an account of her experiences as a female artist. Sarton died in York, Maine, on July 16, 1995.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 178 reviews
September 8, 2017
This is the sixth of Sarton’s journals I’ve read. It covers 1975–6, when she was 63–4 and in her second year in Maine. Her health is not yet a worry, at least as compared to later journals, but there is a faint sense of diminished abilities and an awareness of death’s approach. Poetry has run dry for her, but in the course of writing this journal she publishes a series of biographical reflections and prepares to begin a new novel. Tamas the dog and Bramble the cat are faithful companions, but she is coming to terms with the idea that passionate, individual love will not come again and is to be replaced by more widespread love of others. Her former lover, Judy, suffers from dementia and visits with her are mostly painful reminders of what has been lost.
These journals are not the place to turn if you want momentous events. Rather, read them for deep insight into a writer’s psyche, meditations on the benefits of solitude, and affirmation of the quiet joys of gardening and an ocean view. It’s also remarkable for the casual references to people she knew in her early years in Europe, like Virginia Woolf, Colette and Julian Huxley – these last two die in the course of the journal. Current events only rarely intrude into the narrative, as when Sarton expresses her hopes about Jimmy Carter being elected and frets over turbulence in the Middle East (exhibiting, alas, her unquestioning support of Israel).
My copies of the journals always end up bristled with Post-It flags: every few pages there’s a line that perfectly captures the life of the woman writer. Here’s just a few of the stand-out lines:
An added delight of this journal is the black-and-white photographs, taken by her friend Beverly. Though they’re really no more than amateur snaps, it’s particularly appropriate to see the house and its setting given the journal’s focus stated in the title.
These journals are not the place to turn if you want momentous events. Rather, read them for deep insight into a writer’s psyche, meditations on the benefits of solitude, and affirmation of the quiet joys of gardening and an ocean view. It’s also remarkable for the casual references to people she knew in her early years in Europe, like Virginia Woolf, Colette and Julian Huxley – these last two die in the course of the journal. Current events only rarely intrude into the narrative, as when Sarton expresses her hopes about Jimmy Carter being elected and frets over turbulence in the Middle East (exhibiting, alas, her unquestioning support of Israel).
My copies of the journals always end up bristled with Post-It flags: every few pages there’s a line that perfectly captures the life of the woman writer. Here’s just a few of the stand-out lines:
“Solitude shared with animals has a special quality and rarely turns into loneliness.”
“The greatest danger, as I see it in myself, is the danger of withdrawal into private worlds. We have to keep the channels in ourselves open to pain. At the same time it is essential that true joys be experiences, that the sunrise not leave us unmoved, for civilization depends on the true joys, all those that have nothing to do with money or affluence—nature, the arts, human love.”
“Gardening is like poetry in that it is gratuitous, and also that it cannot be done on will alone. What will can do, and the only thing it can do, is make time in which to do it.”
An added delight of this journal is the black-and-white photographs, taken by her friend Beverly. Though they’re really no more than amateur snaps, it’s particularly appropriate to see the house and its setting given the journal’s focus stated in the title.
June 21, 2014
This is my favorite of May Sarton's journals, and I have read it many times over. In part, this book reflects my own experience of falling madly in love with living in Maine. I love her luminous descriptions of the Maine light in all its seasons. This book also resonates for me because it was written during a period of happiness in her life and resonates with the joy that I experience in living alone.
May 31, 2016
One of our fabulous postal book club books that I read almost a year ago and now can write about since it has made the rounds.
This book could also be titled "The Spinster" as the entire time she lives alone with her dog and cat in a lovely house by the sea in New England. I guess it's the city girl in me, but as much as I loved the beauty, I wanted more people. More action for her life. Friends! Cities! Bars! That is me projecting of course, and I have much to learn from May. She has learned how to slow down and live in the moment.
I will include this wise advice (p.108):
"I have learned in these last few years to forget the desk and everything on it as soon as I leave the room. The key to being centered seems to be for me to do each thing with absolute concentration, to garden as though that were essential, then to write in the same way, to meet my friends, perfectly open to what they bring."
She knew BE HERE NOW very well. I'm working on it...and reading this book helped.
This book could also be titled "The Spinster" as the entire time she lives alone with her dog and cat in a lovely house by the sea in New England. I guess it's the city girl in me, but as much as I loved the beauty, I wanted more people. More action for her life. Friends! Cities! Bars! That is me projecting of course, and I have much to learn from May. She has learned how to slow down and live in the moment.
I will include this wise advice (p.108):
"I have learned in these last few years to forget the desk and everything on it as soon as I leave the room. The key to being centered seems to be for me to do each thing with absolute concentration, to garden as though that were essential, then to write in the same way, to meet my friends, perfectly open to what they bring."
She knew BE HERE NOW very well. I'm working on it...and reading this book helped.
August 27, 2020
This was a wonderful book to read before bed. Sarton is wise but not without flaws (she can be cranky). Her description of day to day life in her house by the sea gave me solace in these conflicted times. Although she does make passing references to politics, her primary focus is the observation of the creative process, aging, relationships over time and the natural world. I loved the images of seasonal change, the colors of the sky and sea as winter became spring. This is a book for a particular mood and for me the timing was perfect.
November 8, 2011
The House By The Sea: A Journal, A Personal Review
Read twice with 30 years between reading changes a person’s appreciative perspective on a work. My recent “re-read of May Sarton’s journal, The House By The Sea was a deeper and broader experience for me in contradistinction to three decades ago. I experienced it as a beautifully written journal, weaving Sarton’s life and thoughts on human experiences as diverse as Feminism, Woman-as-Writer, Solitude, Academia, and Civilization into rich daily mix.
Sarton was active in supporting women artists and writers. She shared her much valued solitude by sitting on several women’s doctoral thesis committees as well. She also explored the sometimes contradictory feelings of woman as professional/artist/writer vs. woman-as caretaker and mother.
May Sarton distinguishes a recluse's isolation from cultivated solitude: “It is not a matter of being a recluse….I shall never be that; I enjoy and need my friends too much. But it is a matter of detachment, of not being quite so easily pulled out of my own orbit by violent attraction, of being able to enjoy without needing to possess.” (Pp. 59-60) She later observes: “….and in fact, it feels like an illness to be so very far away from my inner self.” (P. 87.) She later balances this by observing her hunger for great conversation: “…how starved I am for this kind of conversation, conversation rich in knowledge and wisdom, held in a large frame of reference, about things that really matter.” (P. 91)
I enjoyed her reflections on Civilization and individual patterns of compliant powerlessness. Her earlier reflections on Civilization are a precursor to her reflections on conversations that matter above: “ I am more and more convinced that in the life of civilizations as in the lives of individuals too much matter that cannot be digested, too much experience that has not been imagined and probed and understood, ends in total rejection of everything- ends in anomie.” (Pp. 24-25) She then noted: “We fear what we cannot imagine.” (P. 53.)
In closing I share my favorite succinct phrase of hers from page 143 where she described the longing for and absence of “emotional peers,” a gem of a wise phrase. As a man, I have found beauty, and a gentle emotional clarity in her writings, that has helped me illuminate some of my own unvoiced, unseen, patterns of feeling and thought. Her published journal shows the ambiguous beauty possible in a life lived in an integrated and conscious manner.
Read twice with 30 years between reading changes a person’s appreciative perspective on a work. My recent “re-read of May Sarton’s journal, The House By The Sea was a deeper and broader experience for me in contradistinction to three decades ago. I experienced it as a beautifully written journal, weaving Sarton’s life and thoughts on human experiences as diverse as Feminism, Woman-as-Writer, Solitude, Academia, and Civilization into rich daily mix.
Sarton was active in supporting women artists and writers. She shared her much valued solitude by sitting on several women’s doctoral thesis committees as well. She also explored the sometimes contradictory feelings of woman as professional/artist/writer vs. woman-as caretaker and mother.
May Sarton distinguishes a recluse's isolation from cultivated solitude: “It is not a matter of being a recluse….I shall never be that; I enjoy and need my friends too much. But it is a matter of detachment, of not being quite so easily pulled out of my own orbit by violent attraction, of being able to enjoy without needing to possess.” (Pp. 59-60) She later observes: “….and in fact, it feels like an illness to be so very far away from my inner self.” (P. 87.) She later balances this by observing her hunger for great conversation: “…how starved I am for this kind of conversation, conversation rich in knowledge and wisdom, held in a large frame of reference, about things that really matter.” (P. 91)
I enjoyed her reflections on Civilization and individual patterns of compliant powerlessness. Her earlier reflections on Civilization are a precursor to her reflections on conversations that matter above: “ I am more and more convinced that in the life of civilizations as in the lives of individuals too much matter that cannot be digested, too much experience that has not been imagined and probed and understood, ends in total rejection of everything- ends in anomie.” (Pp. 24-25) She then noted: “We fear what we cannot imagine.” (P. 53.)
In closing I share my favorite succinct phrase of hers from page 143 where she described the longing for and absence of “emotional peers,” a gem of a wise phrase. As a man, I have found beauty, and a gentle emotional clarity in her writings, that has helped me illuminate some of my own unvoiced, unseen, patterns of feeling and thought. Her published journal shows the ambiguous beauty possible in a life lived in an integrated and conscious manner.
November 21, 2010
This book set me to dreaming of living alone by the sea. As I read this journal, I felt as if I was there.
April 10, 2023
«𝙐𝙣 𝙖𝙢𝙖𝙣𝙚𝙘𝙚𝙧 𝙨𝙚𝙧𝙚𝙣𝙤. 𝙃𝙚 𝙘𝙤𝙣𝙩𝙚𝙢𝙥𝙡𝙖𝙙𝙤 𝙚𝙡 𝙨𝙤𝙡 𝙗𝙖𝙣̃𝙖𝙣𝙙𝙤 𝙚𝙡 𝙚𝙨𝙩𝙪𝙙𝙞𝙤 𝙘𝙤𝙣 𝙪𝙣𝙖 𝙡𝙪𝙯 𝙖𝙣𝙖𝙧𝙖𝙣𝙟𝙖𝙙𝙖 𝙮𝙗𝙧𝙞𝙡𝙡𝙖𝙣𝙩𝙚, 𝙮 𝙢𝙚 𝙝𝙚 𝙨𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙖𝙙𝙤 𝙥𝙖𝙧𝙖 𝙖𝙩𝙧𝙖𝙥𝙖𝙧 𝙡𝙖 𝙫𝙞𝙨𝙞𝙤́𝙣 𝙙𝙚𝙡 𝙙𝙞𝙨𝙘𝙤 𝙧𝙤𝙟𝙤 𝙟𝙪𝙨𝙩𝙤 𝙘𝙪𝙖𝙣𝙙𝙤 𝙨𝙚 𝙙𝙚𝙩𝙚𝙣𝙞́𝙖 𝙪𝙣𝙨𝙚𝙜𝙪𝙣𝙙𝙤 𝙚𝙣 𝙚𝙡 𝙗𝙤𝙧𝙙𝙚 𝙚𝙭𝙖𝙘𝙩𝙤 𝙙𝙚𝙡 𝙝𝙤𝙧𝙞𝙯𝙤𝙣𝙩𝙚.»
Es el primer libro que leo de esta autora y me ha dejado un maravilloso sabor de boca.
Es, ciertamente, un libro que desprende la mágica luz de los atardeceres en la costa de Maine con sus paisajes verdoso y montañosos.
A modo de diario, Más Sarton nos traslada en un recorrido tan intenso como personal, a través de sus páginas llenas de belleza a un sin fin de reflexiones extraordinarias.
«𝙎𝙚𝙧 𝙘𝙖𝙥𝙖𝙯 𝙙𝙚 𝙙𝙞𝙨𝙛𝙧𝙪𝙩𝙖𝙧 𝙨𝙞𝙣 𝙣𝙚𝙘𝙚𝙨𝙞𝙙𝙖𝙙 𝙙𝙚 𝙥𝙤𝙨𝙚𝙚𝙧»
Haciéndome pensar más allá de sus líneas
Si eres capaz de equilibrar la necesidad de convertirte en ti misma y de entregarte a los demás, habrás descubierto el secreto de vivir en plenitud.
Es un libro para meditar, disfrutar y amar por la pura belleza del alma.
Vas repasando momentos de su vida, de sus experiencias que entroncan con tu propio camino, descubriendo la necesidad de esa soledad que va permitiéndote ser tu misma, a pesar, en ocasiones, del precio a pagar.
«𝙘𝙧𝙚𝙘𝙚𝙧 𝙚𝙣 𝙨𝙤𝙡𝙚𝙙𝙖𝙙 𝙚𝙨 𝙪𝙣 𝙢𝙤𝙙𝙤 𝙙𝙚 𝙘𝙧𝙚𝙘𝙚𝙧 𝙝𝙖𝙨𝙩𝙖 𝙚𝙡 𝙛𝙞𝙣𝙖𝙡»
Lo que tienes que ofrecer a los demás no depende de ellos, depende de ser tú misma.
En tu interior vas construyendo y, a su vez, aprendiendo a vivir hacia dentro mientras ofreces ese descubrimiento de un valor excepcional. Los apegos cambian al igual que cambia tu forma de mirar.
Crear ese paralelismo entre lo interno y lo externo
“𝙨𝙤𝙡𝙤 𝙚𝙣 𝙚𝙡 𝙞𝙣𝙩𝙚𝙧𝙞𝙤𝙧 𝙙𝙚 𝙡𝙖𝙨 𝙘𝙖𝙨𝙖𝙨 𝙥𝙤𝙙𝙚𝙢𝙤𝙨 𝙘𝙤𝙣𝙩𝙚𝙢𝙥𝙡𝙖𝙧 𝙙𝙚 𝙫𝙚𝙧𝙙𝙖𝙙 𝙪𝙣𝙖 𝙨𝙤𝙡𝙖 𝙛𝙡𝙤𝙧, 𝙨𝙞𝙣 𝙙𝙞𝙨𝙩𝙧𝙖𝙘𝙘𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙚𝙨”
Solo en nuestro interior está la esencia de nuestro propio yo y mientras vas construyendo ese hogar, vas viviendo, creando lo necesario para que “cuatro paredes” alberguen la esencia de quien lo habita.
May Sarton vive bajo el hechizo del mar, las flores, los cambios de luz, sus animales llegando a un puerto seguro, el que te proporciona la edad
«𝙮𝙖 𝙣𝙤 𝙩𝙚𝙣𝙚𝙢𝙤𝙨 𝙦𝙪𝙚 𝙙𝙚𝙢𝙤𝙨𝙩𝙧𝙖𝙧 𝙣𝙖𝙙𝙖, 𝙣𝙞 𝙖 𝙣𝙤𝙨𝙤𝙩𝙧𝙤𝙨 𝙣𝙞 𝙖 𝙣𝙖𝙙𝙞𝙚. 𝙎𝙤𝙢𝙤𝙨 𝙡𝙤 𝙦𝙪𝙚 𝙨𝙤𝙢𝙤𝙨»
Me quedo con esta última reflexión para saber que el mundo de May Sarton ha llegado para quedarse.
Es el primer libro que leo de esta autora y me ha dejado un maravilloso sabor de boca.
Es, ciertamente, un libro que desprende la mágica luz de los atardeceres en la costa de Maine con sus paisajes verdoso y montañosos.
A modo de diario, Más Sarton nos traslada en un recorrido tan intenso como personal, a través de sus páginas llenas de belleza a un sin fin de reflexiones extraordinarias.
«𝙎𝙚𝙧 𝙘𝙖𝙥𝙖𝙯 𝙙𝙚 𝙙𝙞𝙨𝙛𝙧𝙪𝙩𝙖𝙧 𝙨𝙞𝙣 𝙣𝙚𝙘𝙚𝙨𝙞𝙙𝙖𝙙 𝙙𝙚 𝙥𝙤𝙨𝙚𝙚𝙧»
Haciéndome pensar más allá de sus líneas
Si eres capaz de equilibrar la necesidad de convertirte en ti misma y de entregarte a los demás, habrás descubierto el secreto de vivir en plenitud.
Es un libro para meditar, disfrutar y amar por la pura belleza del alma.
Vas repasando momentos de su vida, de sus experiencias que entroncan con tu propio camino, descubriendo la necesidad de esa soledad que va permitiéndote ser tu misma, a pesar, en ocasiones, del precio a pagar.
«𝙘𝙧𝙚𝙘𝙚𝙧 𝙚𝙣 𝙨𝙤𝙡𝙚𝙙𝙖𝙙 𝙚𝙨 𝙪𝙣 𝙢𝙤𝙙𝙤 𝙙𝙚 𝙘𝙧𝙚𝙘𝙚𝙧 𝙝𝙖𝙨𝙩𝙖 𝙚𝙡 𝙛𝙞𝙣𝙖𝙡»
Lo que tienes que ofrecer a los demás no depende de ellos, depende de ser tú misma.
En tu interior vas construyendo y, a su vez, aprendiendo a vivir hacia dentro mientras ofreces ese descubrimiento de un valor excepcional. Los apegos cambian al igual que cambia tu forma de mirar.
Crear ese paralelismo entre lo interno y lo externo
“𝙨𝙤𝙡𝙤 𝙚𝙣 𝙚𝙡 𝙞𝙣𝙩𝙚𝙧𝙞𝙤𝙧 𝙙𝙚 𝙡𝙖𝙨 𝙘𝙖𝙨𝙖𝙨 𝙥𝙤𝙙𝙚𝙢𝙤𝙨 𝙘𝙤𝙣𝙩𝙚𝙢𝙥𝙡𝙖𝙧 𝙙𝙚 𝙫𝙚𝙧𝙙𝙖𝙙 𝙪𝙣𝙖 𝙨𝙤𝙡𝙖 𝙛𝙡𝙤𝙧, 𝙨𝙞𝙣 𝙙𝙞𝙨𝙩𝙧𝙖𝙘𝙘𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙚𝙨”
Solo en nuestro interior está la esencia de nuestro propio yo y mientras vas construyendo ese hogar, vas viviendo, creando lo necesario para que “cuatro paredes” alberguen la esencia de quien lo habita.
May Sarton vive bajo el hechizo del mar, las flores, los cambios de luz, sus animales llegando a un puerto seguro, el que te proporciona la edad
«𝙮𝙖 𝙣𝙤 𝙩𝙚𝙣𝙚𝙢𝙤𝙨 𝙦𝙪𝙚 𝙙𝙚𝙢𝙤𝙨𝙩𝙧𝙖𝙧 𝙣𝙖𝙙𝙖, 𝙣𝙞 𝙖 𝙣𝙤𝙨𝙤𝙩𝙧𝙤𝙨 𝙣𝙞 𝙖 𝙣𝙖𝙙𝙞𝙚. 𝙎𝙤𝙢𝙤𝙨 𝙡𝙤 𝙦𝙪𝙚 𝙨𝙤𝙢𝙤𝙨»
Me quedo con esta última reflexión para saber que el mundo de May Sarton ha llegado para quedarse.
July 29, 2011
Read this with a couple of friends from the Book Nook Café, as May Sarton’s journals (not necessarily her poetry) have been recommended to me before for a bit of musing. This is not a book best read quickly. Here’s a conglomeration of some of the comments I made in our discussion thread as I was reading through the book:
I noted it in the previous book we read, but Sarton never really writes about the events, just about her solitude. And how she's married to it. This book is much the same. And I think she was bipolar, or at least had some kind of mental condition that put her into fits of rage at times. A lot of the time it seems like little things upset her to a large degree and it makes it difficult to relate.
A quote I thought was interesting: "Growing old . . . what is the opposite of 'growing'? I ask myself. 'Withering' perhaps? It is, I assume, quite easy to wither into old age, and hard to grow into it. But there is also an opposite to growth which is regression, in psychoanalytic terms going back to infantile modes of being. And maybe growing old is accepting regression as part of the whole mysterious process. The child in the old person is a precious part of his being able to handle the slow imprisonment. As he is able to do less, he enjoys everything in the present, with a childlike enjoyment." (Nov 20th)
I found the concept of age as a gradual imprisonment to be a fascinating way of putting it, in what I saw was a true sense, as the body slows down and allows less and less (though this is obviously not the case for everyone). And I've seen the childlike wonder that older people can have -- my cousins and I were discussing just the other month how my grandmother finds the smallest things new and exciting again. But I'm still pretty young, and these are only observations that I've made. Would any of our more mature readers care to offer a perspective? :)
She seems very picky to me; sometimes, she is delighted by a visit, but in a passage I recently read, when someone interrupts her Saturday (the day when she is supposed to be left alone) she was upset again. And other visits upset her as well at times, but not nearly as much as they seemed to in Journal of a Solitude. I think she's right in saying that she's happier in the Sea House than she was in Nelson. But she does seem to be putting herself up there with the 80 year olds and seems to expect to become an infirm rather than the boisterous 80 year old still doing her own shopping. I think she ended up having a stroke, so she was right in the end, I suppose, but I remember being quite depressed (haha, perhaps a bit of her language slipping into my comment there) when she said that she was now waiting to die. I think there is so much more to still enjoy in life at 60. But maybe she felt less of a connection because she only had friends, and never knew many from other generations because she never had children or grandchildren?
I've read the part now where she was talking about how young people shouldn't write journals because it tended to make them feel more self-centered and it feels very ironic to me, because I find her very self-centered in her journal. That's what a journal is about, oneself.
I do agree with some of her point about saints, though. I don't think that people should be pushy in religion and make others feel bad if they aren't doing what that person is doing in terms of faith. Real saints are the people who do things without expecting praise or recognition for it, but who do it because it should be done. People who don't think of themselves as saints are the only ones who truly might be saints. If only politics could be more like that.
Had a little laugh when she mentioned having a discussion with Bob Hass, who I had as a professor back at Berkeley. I only wish I could have been there for that discussion!
She said something interesting toward the end of the book about complaining about how no one ever really looks at her garden. And her friend said to her that she does the garden for herself, not necessarily for others. And while Sarton agreed that was true, she also wanted to be able to share the garden, and in that, found it to be very much like poetry. I found this point to be lovely, and I often want to share a flower or an image with people as well. It's a lot easier to do today with technology--snap a camera phone image and post it up for the world to see--but it's still not quite the same.
I also liked something she said about how "spring is always poignant because nothing stays. It must be caught and appreciated on the wing, for soon it will be gone." I've always wanted to garden, but it is distressing to me to think of all the work that's put into the yard, just to have it be gone after a couple of glorious months. For me, it makes it kind of fruitless, but I can see the beauty in knowing that you need to enjoy it while it lasts; those fleeting moments that will never return the same.
I noted it in the previous book we read, but Sarton never really writes about the events, just about her solitude. And how she's married to it. This book is much the same. And I think she was bipolar, or at least had some kind of mental condition that put her into fits of rage at times. A lot of the time it seems like little things upset her to a large degree and it makes it difficult to relate.
A quote I thought was interesting: "Growing old . . . what is the opposite of 'growing'? I ask myself. 'Withering' perhaps? It is, I assume, quite easy to wither into old age, and hard to grow into it. But there is also an opposite to growth which is regression, in psychoanalytic terms going back to infantile modes of being. And maybe growing old is accepting regression as part of the whole mysterious process. The child in the old person is a precious part of his being able to handle the slow imprisonment. As he is able to do less, he enjoys everything in the present, with a childlike enjoyment." (Nov 20th)
I found the concept of age as a gradual imprisonment to be a fascinating way of putting it, in what I saw was a true sense, as the body slows down and allows less and less (though this is obviously not the case for everyone). And I've seen the childlike wonder that older people can have -- my cousins and I were discussing just the other month how my grandmother finds the smallest things new and exciting again. But I'm still pretty young, and these are only observations that I've made. Would any of our more mature readers care to offer a perspective? :)
She seems very picky to me; sometimes, she is delighted by a visit, but in a passage I recently read, when someone interrupts her Saturday (the day when she is supposed to be left alone) she was upset again. And other visits upset her as well at times, but not nearly as much as they seemed to in Journal of a Solitude. I think she's right in saying that she's happier in the Sea House than she was in Nelson. But she does seem to be putting herself up there with the 80 year olds and seems to expect to become an infirm rather than the boisterous 80 year old still doing her own shopping. I think she ended up having a stroke, so she was right in the end, I suppose, but I remember being quite depressed (haha, perhaps a bit of her language slipping into my comment there) when she said that she was now waiting to die. I think there is so much more to still enjoy in life at 60. But maybe she felt less of a connection because she only had friends, and never knew many from other generations because she never had children or grandchildren?
I've read the part now where she was talking about how young people shouldn't write journals because it tended to make them feel more self-centered and it feels very ironic to me, because I find her very self-centered in her journal. That's what a journal is about, oneself.
I do agree with some of her point about saints, though. I don't think that people should be pushy in religion and make others feel bad if they aren't doing what that person is doing in terms of faith. Real saints are the people who do things without expecting praise or recognition for it, but who do it because it should be done. People who don't think of themselves as saints are the only ones who truly might be saints. If only politics could be more like that.
Had a little laugh when she mentioned having a discussion with Bob Hass, who I had as a professor back at Berkeley. I only wish I could have been there for that discussion!
She said something interesting toward the end of the book about complaining about how no one ever really looks at her garden. And her friend said to her that she does the garden for herself, not necessarily for others. And while Sarton agreed that was true, she also wanted to be able to share the garden, and in that, found it to be very much like poetry. I found this point to be lovely, and I often want to share a flower or an image with people as well. It's a lot easier to do today with technology--snap a camera phone image and post it up for the world to see--but it's still not quite the same.
I also liked something she said about how "spring is always poignant because nothing stays. It must be caught and appreciated on the wing, for soon it will be gone." I've always wanted to garden, but it is distressing to me to think of all the work that's put into the yard, just to have it be gone after a couple of glorious months. For me, it makes it kind of fruitless, but I can see the beauty in knowing that you need to enjoy it while it lasts; those fleeting moments that will never return the same.
January 4, 2015
It seems I can never get enough of May Sarton's musings on writing, aging and daily life. Here are a few gems from the book:
"It is essential that true joys be experienced, that the sunrise not leave us unmoved..."
"The sixties are marvelous years, because one has become fully oneself by then."
"The whole point of a journal is this seizing events on the wing. Yet the substance will not come from narration but from the examination of experience, and an attempt, at least, to reduce it to essence."
"What delights the reader in a journal is often minute particulars."
"Autobiography is 'what I remember,' whereas a journal has to do with 'what I am now, at this instant.'"
"And the ocean now dark bright blue, sequined by the sun in a great swath to the south toward the islands. Why is blue *the* color? Does any other excite in the same way? Blue flowers--gentians in an Alpine meadow, delphinium in the summer garden, forget-me-nots, bachelor's buttons among the annuals--always seem the most fabulous, the most precious. ...Lapis lazuli; ... the very blue shadows on snow; bluebirds. I thought of this as I drove across the causeway when I saw the kingfisher, his flash of blue, and rejoiced to see blue water after the gray days."
"Maybe growing old is accepting regression as part of the whole mysterious process. The child in the old person is a precious part of his being able to handle the slow imprisonment. As he is able to do less, he enjoys everything in the present, with a childlike enjoyment. It is a saving grace..."
"I can't stop doing what I have always one, trying to sort out and shape experience. The journal is a good way to do this at a less intense level than by creating a work of art as highly organized as a poem, for instance, or the sustained effort a novel requires. I find it wonderful to have a receptacle into which to pour vivid momentary insights, and a way of ordering day-to-day experience (as opposed to Maslow's 'peak experiences,' which would require poetry)."
"Revelation rises up slowly if one can give it space, and if one keeps at [writing], often with no apparent result."
"Spring is always poignant because nothing stays. It must be caught an and appreciated on the wing, for soon it will be gone."
On the desire to start writing a novel: "I am longing to live in an imaginary world again, with people about whom I can know everything and tell the whole truth."
"I have come to see that the past is always changing, is never static, never 'placed' forever like a book on a shelf. As we grow and change, we understand things and the people who have influenced us in new ways."
"One of the good elements in old age is that we no longer have to prove anything, to ourselves or to anyone. We are what we are."
"I do look at my face in the glass every morning when I brush my teeth, but what I see is not dismaying because I don't care about wrinkles. I see my eyes, and they are very alive."
"The key to being centered seems to be for me to do each thing with absolute concentration, to garden as though that were the essential, then to write in the same way, to meet my friends, perfectly open to what they bring."
"Enormous or not, life is made of small things, small happinesses, chained like daisies, one by one."
"The sea has erased the pain."
"Creation depends as much on laziness as on hard work."
"Peace does not mean an end to tension, the good tensions, or of struggle. It means, I think, less waste. It means being centered."
"It is essential that true joys be experienced, that the sunrise not leave us unmoved..."
"The sixties are marvelous years, because one has become fully oneself by then."
"The whole point of a journal is this seizing events on the wing. Yet the substance will not come from narration but from the examination of experience, and an attempt, at least, to reduce it to essence."
"What delights the reader in a journal is often minute particulars."
"Autobiography is 'what I remember,' whereas a journal has to do with 'what I am now, at this instant.'"
"And the ocean now dark bright blue, sequined by the sun in a great swath to the south toward the islands. Why is blue *the* color? Does any other excite in the same way? Blue flowers--gentians in an Alpine meadow, delphinium in the summer garden, forget-me-nots, bachelor's buttons among the annuals--always seem the most fabulous, the most precious. ...Lapis lazuli; ... the very blue shadows on snow; bluebirds. I thought of this as I drove across the causeway when I saw the kingfisher, his flash of blue, and rejoiced to see blue water after the gray days."
"Maybe growing old is accepting regression as part of the whole mysterious process. The child in the old person is a precious part of his being able to handle the slow imprisonment. As he is able to do less, he enjoys everything in the present, with a childlike enjoyment. It is a saving grace..."
"I can't stop doing what I have always one, trying to sort out and shape experience. The journal is a good way to do this at a less intense level than by creating a work of art as highly organized as a poem, for instance, or the sustained effort a novel requires. I find it wonderful to have a receptacle into which to pour vivid momentary insights, and a way of ordering day-to-day experience (as opposed to Maslow's 'peak experiences,' which would require poetry)."
"Revelation rises up slowly if one can give it space, and if one keeps at [writing], often with no apparent result."
"Spring is always poignant because nothing stays. It must be caught an and appreciated on the wing, for soon it will be gone."
On the desire to start writing a novel: "I am longing to live in an imaginary world again, with people about whom I can know everything and tell the whole truth."
"I have come to see that the past is always changing, is never static, never 'placed' forever like a book on a shelf. As we grow and change, we understand things and the people who have influenced us in new ways."
"One of the good elements in old age is that we no longer have to prove anything, to ourselves or to anyone. We are what we are."
"I do look at my face in the glass every morning when I brush my teeth, but what I see is not dismaying because I don't care about wrinkles. I see my eyes, and they are very alive."
"The key to being centered seems to be for me to do each thing with absolute concentration, to garden as though that were the essential, then to write in the same way, to meet my friends, perfectly open to what they bring."
"Enormous or not, life is made of small things, small happinesses, chained like daisies, one by one."
"The sea has erased the pain."
"Creation depends as much on laziness as on hard work."
"Peace does not mean an end to tension, the good tensions, or of struggle. It means, I think, less waste. It means being centered."
August 27, 2024
This is exactly what I was needing in my reading life these days, something quiet and mellow. No plot. No drama. Just being in the moment with nature and occasional deep thoughts. I can completely see how dull this would read if you weren’t in the mood for it. It was the perfect book to read at night before bed, very calming.
Two days ago the purple finches came back ..lovely to lie still and watch the wings coming and going from the feeders.
I went to bed at half past seven last night (it had been a long day), very happy to be in bed with a huge glass jar of pink birthday roses beside me and Tamas and Bramble on the bed. Who could honestly complain about a life such as this?
Yesterday I felt exhausted and only managed to write nine short letters in the morning -I used to do at least twenty on Sundays. Gosh, remember when people wrote letters all the time? I miss those days.
I know that I have a city personality and living anywhere rural would drive me nuts. Yet Sarton, being an excellent writer, made me long for her experiences of sitting in her garden in rural Maine, watching birds and picking flowers. Lovely! It reminded me of the Rosamund Pilcher book Winter Solstice, which is set in rural Scotland during wintertime. In real life, I understand what a miserable setting that would be for me. Nose running, fingers and toes numb to the cold, the early darkness making me depressed, the isolation and boredom….yet in that book I found myself longing to live in the village she was describing. I love it when a book can make me want something I normally wouldn’t want.
I have not said enough about what it is to wake each day to the sunrise and to that great tranquil open space as I lie in my bed, having breakfast, often quietly thinking for a half hour. That morning amplitude, silence, the sea, all make for a radical change in tempo.
Sarton does a lovely job describing her relationship with her cat and her dog, as well as all the wild birds she feeds. I got a real James Herriot “All Creatures Great and Small” vibe from the book at times.
Solitude shared with animals has a special quality and rarely turns into loneliness. Bramble and Tamas have brought me comfort and joy.
Tamas is a great help to me because he is waiting for his walk at half past eleven; my instinct to push work a little beyond a feeling of fatigue is short-circuited by a bark; I "let go" and enjoy the letting go. Tamas has done a lot to subdue the compulsive in me.
I googled Sarton’s house and discovered it was torn down a few years ago. Waaaah! However, upon further reading, I learned that the couple who had been renting the house to Sarton, when they died, their wills started a foundation supporting an artist retreat on the land. The house Sarton had been living in needed so much work that it would have depleted the foundation’s money. I think Sarton would be ok with the result. The foundation built a new building, ADA accessible, for four artists to live and work there. They kept the garden, Sarton’s beloved garden, and planted lots of plants in the foundation of her old house. The important part, creating and communing with nature, is still in residence at that location. Also googled the prices of surrounding houses. Hoo boy, very very expensive, I’m talking millions.
I knew nothing about Sarton starting this book and it is not necessary to have read anything by her in order to enjoy her journal. I did have to keep googling a lot of people she referenced. I knew the biggies like Huxley and Virginia Woolf, but not many of the others who turned out to be somewhat famous academics and intellectuals. I did find it interesting that everyone she was friends with seemed to be 20+ years older than her. The journals spans her ages of 62-64 and basically everyone she mentions as being a friend is in their 80s. The younger people she knows seem to be the children of those friends.
Sarton mentions several times random people appearing at her house because they are fans of her work. WTF. Was that ok in the 1970s? To hunt down the address of a famous person and decide to go visit them? She sometimes would begrudgingly invite them in for a cup of tea. With my years of reading true crime and watching true crime tv shows, all I could think of was serial killer or that Kathy Bates character from the Stephen King movie Misery. Sarton feels a bit guilty for being irritated with these people. I would have been livid and also freaked out.
Because it is convenient for the intruder, they intrude. It is then I wish I had a butler, a formidable one, to open the door and say,"Miss Sarton regrets-“ As I don't have such a factotum, I have to do it myself, and am rude. This time the person left in a huff ... and the result, dismay and fury on my part.
Every once in a while in the journal she references current events and for the most part they are pretty cringy. No, Mao is not a great guy. Yikes! I did google when did the West start learning about the nightmare of the cultural revolution and it wasn’t until after this book was published. It just goes to show that you don’t always really know what is going on in another country. She also worried a lot about crime and youth and how America was going to hell in a handbasket. Just like every single other old person no matter what era they live in. It was always better in the past. I did feel nostalgic when she mentioned watching Walter Cronkite on the news for the 1976 bicentennial. I was 8 that year. I recall when everyone listened/read the same news and we didn’t have the extreme polarization we have today(thanks internet!)
Always in the back of my consciousness is terrible woe and anxiety about the death of the spirit in our inner cities.
Violence has always been there, but now we know more and are confronted every day on the TV screen and in every newspaper by monstrous acts of vengeance perpetrated by human beings upon fellow human beings. Carol Heilbrun called last night and said apropos of this, "Yes, but it is better now because we do know." But is it?
I enjoyed all her musings on aging and solitude. As an introvert, her life sounded pretty sweet. Lots of alone time interspersed with hanging out with friends. However, I would like my alone time to also be with family, if that makes sense. Like alone time but others are in the house doing their own thing. Her concerns about not having kids, not having a partner, not having parents or it seems siblings or nieces or nephews did sound like too much solitude. Her fear of breaking a hip and not being found for days was a valid one.
Growing old is certainly far easier for people like me who have no job from which to retire at a given age. I can't stop doing what I have always done, trying to sort out and shape experience. The journal is a good way to do this at a less intense level than by creating a work of art as highly organized as a poem, for instance, or the sustained effort a novel requires.
I am over-extended. Time to pull in the boundaries and lift the drawbridge.
I feel sure that after sixty everyone has death in the back of his or her consciousness much of the time.
I mean every encounter here to be more than superficial, to be a real exchange of lives, and this is more easily accomplished one to one than in a group. But the continuity is solitude. Without long periods here alone, especially in winter when visits are rare, I would have nothing to give, and would be less open to the gifts offered me.
She wrote about her partner Judy having Alzheimer’s and dealing with that. Since my mother had Alzheimer’s I try not to read anything about it. I lived it, I don’t need to read about it. It wasn’t in the book too much. Judy lived in a nursing home and came to visit Sarton for brief holidays. Those parts made me think of my father and how he dealt with my mother’s decline. Also brought up fears of me or my siblings or my husband getting Alzheimer’s and how I will deal with that blow. UGH.
I have such sadness about Judy! She is going from me, from us all, little by little, and I feel helpless and often terribly irritated by her repeating the same phrase over and over as she does.
When one has lived with someone for years, as I did with Judy, something quite intangible is there, as though in the blood-stream, that no change in her changes.
Maybe growing old is accepting regression as part of the whole mysterious process. The child in the old person is a precious part of his being able to handle the slow imprisonment. As he is able to do less, he enjoys everything in the present, with a childlike enjoyment. It is a saving grace, and I see it when Judy is with me here.
Death comes by installments but sometimes the first installments can be very steep, perhaps much more painful to those around them than to the person.
The most difficult thing for me, of course, is that she is here with me but we no longer can share anything. I try to tell her what I am thinking about, but all the reactions now are superficial, glib sentences like, "How interesting!" when she is clearly not paying the slightest attention. After a few days I begin to feel desperately lonely.
As someone a few years younger than she was when writing this, she struck me as a lot older than me. Maybe I am delusional and I come across as old? Maybe it’s the era we live in? Those baby boomers really redefined aging for the rest of us. Maybe it was her friend group being so much older than her so she skewed older? Am I going to start dwelling on aging that much in 5 years? I guess I already do somewhat, which is why I found reading her thoughts on the matter to be interesting. According to actuary tables, I’ve got 22 more years left on earth. 2002 seemed like just the other day to me so that can be a bit freaky, thinking about average life expectancies. Of course, I could be hit by a bus tomorrow. I guess the key is to balance being aware of your mortality, accepting it, and also still being in the present moment, living your life right as it is happening and not worrying too much.
The basic pattern of a life changes radically when there is no one left, for instance, who remembers one as a child. Each such death is an earthquake that buries a little more of the past forever.
Because I am thinking so much about the past these days I have come to see that the past is always changing, is never static, never "placed" forever like a book on a shelf. As we grow and change, we understand things and the people who have influenced us in new ways.
The sixties are marvelous years, because one has become fully oneself by then, but the erosions of old age, erosion of strength, of memory, of physical well-being have not yet begun to frustrate and needle.
Very few young people observe anything except themselves very closely.
It is all so present to me that it is quite a shock to find old photographs and realize, looking at my father's stiff white collars and my mother's big hats, and her bathing costume which included long black stockings, how long ago it really was. I’m really starting to feel this. I look at photos from my childhood and realize how long ago and old it seems.
Sarton writes a little bit about feminism and women which I guess is what she is known for? She was born in 1912 and her perspective on women was a fascinating mix of eras. She was definitely ahead of most of her generation.
I thought, not for the first time, that the chief problem women have, even now, is that they have to be both Martha and Mary most of the time and these two modes of being are diametrically opposite.
These young women are determined to have children as part of a fulfilled life and to do original work as well. I admire them wholeheartedly. But I am always up against my own hard view that it is next to impossible to lead a fulfilled life as a human being and do original work of the highest caliber, if one is a woman.
She told me that one day when the cleaning woman was there, C. was in her room painting and she suddenly thought, "This is what it is like for David all the time." It seemed an extraordinary luxury to be able to work at her painting while someone else cleaned.
For years my mother buried her anger-and sometimes I think she was right to do so, because in his sixties my father was never going to change. Letting the anger out would have made no difference, only upset him, not led to a sudden vision of what he had failed to do and to be for her. So she beat herself inside-and he never grew up.
It is what makes me less than enthusiastic about a good deal of feminist literature at present. It is not either/or. It cannot be woman against man. It has to be woman finding her true self with or without man, but not against man.
If you are looking for a meditative, thoughtful, chill book to read before bed, look no further. This is it.
I have learned in these last years to forget the desk and everything on it as soon as I leave this room. The key to being centered seems to be for me to do each thing with absolute concentration, to garden as though that were the essential, then to write in the same way, to meet my friends, perfectly open to what they bring. And most of the time that is how it is.
Two days ago the purple finches came back ..lovely to lie still and watch the wings coming and going from the feeders.
I went to bed at half past seven last night (it had been a long day), very happy to be in bed with a huge glass jar of pink birthday roses beside me and Tamas and Bramble on the bed. Who could honestly complain about a life such as this?
Yesterday I felt exhausted and only managed to write nine short letters in the morning -I used to do at least twenty on Sundays. Gosh, remember when people wrote letters all the time? I miss those days.
I know that I have a city personality and living anywhere rural would drive me nuts. Yet Sarton, being an excellent writer, made me long for her experiences of sitting in her garden in rural Maine, watching birds and picking flowers. Lovely! It reminded me of the Rosamund Pilcher book Winter Solstice, which is set in rural Scotland during wintertime. In real life, I understand what a miserable setting that would be for me. Nose running, fingers and toes numb to the cold, the early darkness making me depressed, the isolation and boredom….yet in that book I found myself longing to live in the village she was describing. I love it when a book can make me want something I normally wouldn’t want.
I have not said enough about what it is to wake each day to the sunrise and to that great tranquil open space as I lie in my bed, having breakfast, often quietly thinking for a half hour. That morning amplitude, silence, the sea, all make for a radical change in tempo.
Sarton does a lovely job describing her relationship with her cat and her dog, as well as all the wild birds she feeds. I got a real James Herriot “All Creatures Great and Small” vibe from the book at times.
Solitude shared with animals has a special quality and rarely turns into loneliness. Bramble and Tamas have brought me comfort and joy.
Tamas is a great help to me because he is waiting for his walk at half past eleven; my instinct to push work a little beyond a feeling of fatigue is short-circuited by a bark; I "let go" and enjoy the letting go. Tamas has done a lot to subdue the compulsive in me.
I googled Sarton’s house and discovered it was torn down a few years ago. Waaaah! However, upon further reading, I learned that the couple who had been renting the house to Sarton, when they died, their wills started a foundation supporting an artist retreat on the land. The house Sarton had been living in needed so much work that it would have depleted the foundation’s money. I think Sarton would be ok with the result. The foundation built a new building, ADA accessible, for four artists to live and work there. They kept the garden, Sarton’s beloved garden, and planted lots of plants in the foundation of her old house. The important part, creating and communing with nature, is still in residence at that location. Also googled the prices of surrounding houses. Hoo boy, very very expensive, I’m talking millions.
I knew nothing about Sarton starting this book and it is not necessary to have read anything by her in order to enjoy her journal. I did have to keep googling a lot of people she referenced. I knew the biggies like Huxley and Virginia Woolf, but not many of the others who turned out to be somewhat famous academics and intellectuals. I did find it interesting that everyone she was friends with seemed to be 20+ years older than her. The journals spans her ages of 62-64 and basically everyone she mentions as being a friend is in their 80s. The younger people she knows seem to be the children of those friends.
Sarton mentions several times random people appearing at her house because they are fans of her work. WTF. Was that ok in the 1970s? To hunt down the address of a famous person and decide to go visit them? She sometimes would begrudgingly invite them in for a cup of tea. With my years of reading true crime and watching true crime tv shows, all I could think of was serial killer or that Kathy Bates character from the Stephen King movie Misery. Sarton feels a bit guilty for being irritated with these people. I would have been livid and also freaked out.
Because it is convenient for the intruder, they intrude. It is then I wish I had a butler, a formidable one, to open the door and say,"Miss Sarton regrets-“ As I don't have such a factotum, I have to do it myself, and am rude. This time the person left in a huff ... and the result, dismay and fury on my part.
Every once in a while in the journal she references current events and for the most part they are pretty cringy. No, Mao is not a great guy. Yikes! I did google when did the West start learning about the nightmare of the cultural revolution and it wasn’t until after this book was published. It just goes to show that you don’t always really know what is going on in another country. She also worried a lot about crime and youth and how America was going to hell in a handbasket. Just like every single other old person no matter what era they live in. It was always better in the past. I did feel nostalgic when she mentioned watching Walter Cronkite on the news for the 1976 bicentennial. I was 8 that year. I recall when everyone listened/read the same news and we didn’t have the extreme polarization we have today(thanks internet!)
Always in the back of my consciousness is terrible woe and anxiety about the death of the spirit in our inner cities.
Violence has always been there, but now we know more and are confronted every day on the TV screen and in every newspaper by monstrous acts of vengeance perpetrated by human beings upon fellow human beings. Carol Heilbrun called last night and said apropos of this, "Yes, but it is better now because we do know." But is it?
I enjoyed all her musings on aging and solitude. As an introvert, her life sounded pretty sweet. Lots of alone time interspersed with hanging out with friends. However, I would like my alone time to also be with family, if that makes sense. Like alone time but others are in the house doing their own thing. Her concerns about not having kids, not having a partner, not having parents or it seems siblings or nieces or nephews did sound like too much solitude. Her fear of breaking a hip and not being found for days was a valid one.
Growing old is certainly far easier for people like me who have no job from which to retire at a given age. I can't stop doing what I have always done, trying to sort out and shape experience. The journal is a good way to do this at a less intense level than by creating a work of art as highly organized as a poem, for instance, or the sustained effort a novel requires.
I am over-extended. Time to pull in the boundaries and lift the drawbridge.
I feel sure that after sixty everyone has death in the back of his or her consciousness much of the time.
I mean every encounter here to be more than superficial, to be a real exchange of lives, and this is more easily accomplished one to one than in a group. But the continuity is solitude. Without long periods here alone, especially in winter when visits are rare, I would have nothing to give, and would be less open to the gifts offered me.
She wrote about her partner Judy having Alzheimer’s and dealing with that. Since my mother had Alzheimer’s I try not to read anything about it. I lived it, I don’t need to read about it. It wasn’t in the book too much. Judy lived in a nursing home and came to visit Sarton for brief holidays. Those parts made me think of my father and how he dealt with my mother’s decline. Also brought up fears of me or my siblings or my husband getting Alzheimer’s and how I will deal with that blow. UGH.
I have such sadness about Judy! She is going from me, from us all, little by little, and I feel helpless and often terribly irritated by her repeating the same phrase over and over as she does.
When one has lived with someone for years, as I did with Judy, something quite intangible is there, as though in the blood-stream, that no change in her changes.
Maybe growing old is accepting regression as part of the whole mysterious process. The child in the old person is a precious part of his being able to handle the slow imprisonment. As he is able to do less, he enjoys everything in the present, with a childlike enjoyment. It is a saving grace, and I see it when Judy is with me here.
Death comes by installments but sometimes the first installments can be very steep, perhaps much more painful to those around them than to the person.
The most difficult thing for me, of course, is that she is here with me but we no longer can share anything. I try to tell her what I am thinking about, but all the reactions now are superficial, glib sentences like, "How interesting!" when she is clearly not paying the slightest attention. After a few days I begin to feel desperately lonely.
As someone a few years younger than she was when writing this, she struck me as a lot older than me. Maybe I am delusional and I come across as old? Maybe it’s the era we live in? Those baby boomers really redefined aging for the rest of us. Maybe it was her friend group being so much older than her so she skewed older? Am I going to start dwelling on aging that much in 5 years? I guess I already do somewhat, which is why I found reading her thoughts on the matter to be interesting. According to actuary tables, I’ve got 22 more years left on earth. 2002 seemed like just the other day to me so that can be a bit freaky, thinking about average life expectancies. Of course, I could be hit by a bus tomorrow. I guess the key is to balance being aware of your mortality, accepting it, and also still being in the present moment, living your life right as it is happening and not worrying too much.
The basic pattern of a life changes radically when there is no one left, for instance, who remembers one as a child. Each such death is an earthquake that buries a little more of the past forever.
Because I am thinking so much about the past these days I have come to see that the past is always changing, is never static, never "placed" forever like a book on a shelf. As we grow and change, we understand things and the people who have influenced us in new ways.
The sixties are marvelous years, because one has become fully oneself by then, but the erosions of old age, erosion of strength, of memory, of physical well-being have not yet begun to frustrate and needle.
Very few young people observe anything except themselves very closely.
It is all so present to me that it is quite a shock to find old photographs and realize, looking at my father's stiff white collars and my mother's big hats, and her bathing costume which included long black stockings, how long ago it really was. I’m really starting to feel this. I look at photos from my childhood and realize how long ago and old it seems.
Sarton writes a little bit about feminism and women which I guess is what she is known for? She was born in 1912 and her perspective on women was a fascinating mix of eras. She was definitely ahead of most of her generation.
I thought, not for the first time, that the chief problem women have, even now, is that they have to be both Martha and Mary most of the time and these two modes of being are diametrically opposite.
These young women are determined to have children as part of a fulfilled life and to do original work as well. I admire them wholeheartedly. But I am always up against my own hard view that it is next to impossible to lead a fulfilled life as a human being and do original work of the highest caliber, if one is a woman.
She told me that one day when the cleaning woman was there, C. was in her room painting and she suddenly thought, "This is what it is like for David all the time." It seemed an extraordinary luxury to be able to work at her painting while someone else cleaned.
For years my mother buried her anger-and sometimes I think she was right to do so, because in his sixties my father was never going to change. Letting the anger out would have made no difference, only upset him, not led to a sudden vision of what he had failed to do and to be for her. So she beat herself inside-and he never grew up.
It is what makes me less than enthusiastic about a good deal of feminist literature at present. It is not either/or. It cannot be woman against man. It has to be woman finding her true self with or without man, but not against man.
If you are looking for a meditative, thoughtful, chill book to read before bed, look no further. This is it.
I have learned in these last years to forget the desk and everything on it as soon as I leave this room. The key to being centered seems to be for me to do each thing with absolute concentration, to garden as though that were the essential, then to write in the same way, to meet my friends, perfectly open to what they bring. And most of the time that is how it is.
December 24, 2025
Siempre que leo algo de May Sarton termino con un hueco en el pecho. Es imposible no simpatizar con ella cuando cuenta que es feliz en esa casa repleta de hiedra, resguardada del caos del mundo, aunque eso signifique alejarse de amigos y antiguas rutinas. Qué traicionera es la soledad.
October 13, 2023
Esta autora es, para mí, una apuesta segura. No dudaría en recomendarla sobre todo para lectoras de una cierta edad porque los temas que trata pueden resultar menos interesantes a aquellas mujeres que aún se mueven en la cuarentena.
Me ha recordado en cierto modo a "Una habitación propia" de Virginia Woolf. May hace unas cuantas reflexiones sobre lo que se necesita a la hora de escribir, también sobre el acto de envejecer, sobre la soledad (la autoimpuesta y la que nos sobreviene a veces), los amigos, las cartas (que ella considera la mejor manera de seguir en contacto y comunicarse con aquellos a quienes quiere...). El diario que escribió entre sus 62 y 63 años de vida, recién trasladada a Wild Knoll en Kittery, Maine, tras vender su casa de Nelson, New Hampshire. Nuevos paisajes y un nuevo comienzo.
Hacía tiempo que un libro no me gustaba tanto como para estirar su lectura al máximo debatiéndome entre querer llegar al final y no querer que terminara realmente.
Me ha recordado en cierto modo a "Una habitación propia" de Virginia Woolf. May hace unas cuantas reflexiones sobre lo que se necesita a la hora de escribir, también sobre el acto de envejecer, sobre la soledad (la autoimpuesta y la que nos sobreviene a veces), los amigos, las cartas (que ella considera la mejor manera de seguir en contacto y comunicarse con aquellos a quienes quiere...). El diario que escribió entre sus 62 y 63 años de vida, recién trasladada a Wild Knoll en Kittery, Maine, tras vender su casa de Nelson, New Hampshire. Nuevos paisajes y un nuevo comienzo.
Hacía tiempo que un libro no me gustaba tanto como para estirar su lectura al máximo debatiéndome entre querer llegar al final y no querer que terminara realmente.
January 23, 2019
I always enjoy Sarton’s journals, as I feel much in common with her - her love of solitude, animals, birds, and gardens. This one especially resonated with me as she was about my age at the time, and had many older friends who were experiencing the problems of old age.
December 10, 2025
A text that seeped into me like a teabag, imbuing a deep, profound pleasure with each turned each page.
A testament to the richness of the quotidian, & the comfort of repetition. Sarton's days—& thus these pages—are filled almost solely with a same limited set of concerns: tending her garden, toiling over her various literary activities, taking long walks with her beloved dog, fretting over piles of correspondence, checking the obituary section each day for familiar names, lamenting how despite one's best efforts somehow so little seems to get accomplished with each passing day.
And yet she finds endless ways to convey the endless small variations within even the most routine: gorgeous descriptions of the view of sea & sky out her attic office window, delight with each change of the seasons, the small flames—sometimes satisfying, sometimes destabilizing—sparked by interactions with others (Sarton is famously more than a bit of a grouch).
I also loved this as a sustained meditation of the fullness of the solitary life, & I really appreciated that here we witness Sarton's equally fierce loyalty to honoring a crucial relationship (with her ex-partner Judy, whose slow succumbing to dementia is movingly documented here) as well as to her rigorously guarded state of self-isolation.
Not out of any intentionality I have read multiple texts over the last year or so featuring elderly protagonists; I have really appreciated the rich longview perspectives I have received from these encounters as I myself have reached a new chapter in life am looking ahead to the quick approach of middle age.
"Because I am thinking so much about the past these days I have come to see that the past is always changing, never static, never 'placed' forever like a book on a shelf. As we grow and change, we understand things and the people who have influenced us in new ways."
A testament to the richness of the quotidian, & the comfort of repetition. Sarton's days—& thus these pages—are filled almost solely with a same limited set of concerns: tending her garden, toiling over her various literary activities, taking long walks with her beloved dog, fretting over piles of correspondence, checking the obituary section each day for familiar names, lamenting how despite one's best efforts somehow so little seems to get accomplished with each passing day.
And yet she finds endless ways to convey the endless small variations within even the most routine: gorgeous descriptions of the view of sea & sky out her attic office window, delight with each change of the seasons, the small flames—sometimes satisfying, sometimes destabilizing—sparked by interactions with others (Sarton is famously more than a bit of a grouch).
I also loved this as a sustained meditation of the fullness of the solitary life, & I really appreciated that here we witness Sarton's equally fierce loyalty to honoring a crucial relationship (with her ex-partner Judy, whose slow succumbing to dementia is movingly documented here) as well as to her rigorously guarded state of self-isolation.
Not out of any intentionality I have read multiple texts over the last year or so featuring elderly protagonists; I have really appreciated the rich longview perspectives I have received from these encounters as I myself have reached a new chapter in life am looking ahead to the quick approach of middle age.
"Because I am thinking so much about the past these days I have come to see that the past is always changing, never static, never 'placed' forever like a book on a shelf. As we grow and change, we understand things and the people who have influenced us in new ways."
June 4, 2013
"In 1973, May Sarton moved from the inland New Hampshire home which had been the scene of the creative and inner life she so powerfully probed in both Plant Dreaming Deep and Journal of a Solitude. She went then to a house on the seacoast of Maine. It was a place that was alone in all but a few months in summer, with the sea and the woods, and a wide sky ever present.
"At first, the peace of this place and the escape from the personal anguish she had come to associate with her New Hampshire home seemed to have its own dark side. As she says,'I became haunted by something I read years ago to the effect that when the Japanese were in a period of peace they painted only fans.
"But the creative passion returned and she discovered that what she has to give does not depend on others, and for the creative spirit that is a discovery of rare value. 'Solitude,' she writes, 'like a long love, deepens with time, and I trust, will not fail me as my own powers of creation diminish. For growing into solitude is one way of growing to the end.'"
~~back cover
I ordinarily don't read journals, and I don't remember what prompted me to read this one. But I'm grateful I did -- her language is eloquent, and her insights are enchanting and eternal, as witness that line above: "growing into solitude is one way of growing to the end."
She's a feminist, and many of her responses to things flow out of that conviction. In some ways, I think this journal would not resonate as well with mean as it does with women. She is also contemplating her old age, and eventual dying -- and that phase of life will not resonate with the young, who still have their life's trajectory before them.
But she spoke to me, on many levels. And I was delighted by those glimpses into her perceptions. They made the chunter of daily life worth wading through.
" '...death is a passage and the dying must be helped to make it, chiefly by 'letting go.'' I believe this and that we must begin to let go long before we are dying, ... It happens almost imperceptibly; some things do not seem so important as they did." pg 55-56
"Most people swallow the unacceptable because it makes life so much easier. At what point does one feel that doing battle, however painful and rending, is necessary? This is the excruciating question. If a woman loves her husband and knows how tired he too is when he comes home from the wrangles and tensions of work, when can she allow herself to demand attention, to put her case squarely before him?
"That is the tragedy. If things are never fought out, it means that somewhere deep down the marriage does not make for growth. Stability has been achieved at a very high price, too high a price ..." pg 60
"I did not think of it at the time, but it is this repetitiveness that makes housework as dulling -- no sooner are the dishes washed than it's time to get a new meal." pg 188
"It may mean that I am entering a new phase, the simple letting go that means old age. I no longer think, for instance, of buying a piece of furniture or a rug ... why add to the things here? There is no longer a great deal of time. I have been moderately acquisitive, but am not any longer." pg 197-198
"At first, the peace of this place and the escape from the personal anguish she had come to associate with her New Hampshire home seemed to have its own dark side. As she says,'I became haunted by something I read years ago to the effect that when the Japanese were in a period of peace they painted only fans.
"But the creative passion returned and she discovered that what she has to give does not depend on others, and for the creative spirit that is a discovery of rare value. 'Solitude,' she writes, 'like a long love, deepens with time, and I trust, will not fail me as my own powers of creation diminish. For growing into solitude is one way of growing to the end.'"
~~back cover
I ordinarily don't read journals, and I don't remember what prompted me to read this one. But I'm grateful I did -- her language is eloquent, and her insights are enchanting and eternal, as witness that line above: "growing into solitude is one way of growing to the end."
She's a feminist, and many of her responses to things flow out of that conviction. In some ways, I think this journal would not resonate as well with mean as it does with women. She is also contemplating her old age, and eventual dying -- and that phase of life will not resonate with the young, who still have their life's trajectory before them.
But she spoke to me, on many levels. And I was delighted by those glimpses into her perceptions. They made the chunter of daily life worth wading through.
" '...death is a passage and the dying must be helped to make it, chiefly by 'letting go.'' I believe this and that we must begin to let go long before we are dying, ... It happens almost imperceptibly; some things do not seem so important as they did." pg 55-56
"Most people swallow the unacceptable because it makes life so much easier. At what point does one feel that doing battle, however painful and rending, is necessary? This is the excruciating question. If a woman loves her husband and knows how tired he too is when he comes home from the wrangles and tensions of work, when can she allow herself to demand attention, to put her case squarely before him?
"That is the tragedy. If things are never fought out, it means that somewhere deep down the marriage does not make for growth. Stability has been achieved at a very high price, too high a price ..." pg 60
"I did not think of it at the time, but it is this repetitiveness that makes housework as dulling -- no sooner are the dishes washed than it's time to get a new meal." pg 188
"It may mean that I am entering a new phase, the simple letting go that means old age. I no longer think, for instance, of buying a piece of furniture or a rug ... why add to the things here? There is no longer a great deal of time. I have been moderately acquisitive, but am not any longer." pg 197-198
February 21, 2017
I love reading Sarton's journals. Interesting in her last entry, she mentioned she was writing this for publication, so I wondered whether she would have written differently if it was just for her; that's how I read it, a journal that eventually got published. Enjoyed her comments regarding the weather (and I thought we were suffering from global warming now!) and the occasional notes on politics. I found it interesting, though, that she celebrated her 64th birthday toward the end, which meant she started the journal when she was 62. By the comments she made regarding her body and mind, I thought she was mid-70s! Just an old soul, I guess. :-)
June 13, 2016
I love all of May Sarton's journals. I will say, though, that if you like books with lots of action and dialog, this won't be for you. Sarton (1912 - 1995) was a solitary person with a deep appreciation for the sea and her gardens. I think nothing pleased her more than a basketful of blooms brought into the house. She had a long-term relationship with a woman named Judy but they seldom lived together. People exhausted her; solitude invigorated her.
She wrote: "Loneliness is the poverty of self; solitude is the richness of self." And that's how I feel when I read her work, a richness of self.
She wrote: "Loneliness is the poverty of self; solitude is the richness of self." And that's how I feel when I read her work, a richness of self.
February 24, 2013
I read May Sarton for inspiration in writing, and her journal here was no exception. What I liked about this journal was that she can be introspective and self-reflective while still being centered in her descriptions and observations. There is a balance to her writing that I find refreshing. Her journal demonstrates her thinking in a very matter of fact way- perhaps she is unromantic and yet at the same time poetic- a very appetizing way to approach experiential documentation.
January 6, 2013
Wonderful book about the day to day life of this wonderful poet as she lives on her own terms and on in solitude in a new place. The fears she faces and the descriptions of her gardens and her work give a wonderful insight but best of all...they take the reader out of their own "space" out of their own "fears" and the thoughts of mortality that stalk every single person on the planet.
September 10, 2014
Liked this as well as the other 2 journals I've read by Sarton. Her house by the the sea sounds like a retreat with it's sweeping views of the ocean and all the flower beds and pastures leading down to the shore. Having grown up in New England I can really visualize the people, places, foods and events she writes about. As a psychologist, I love reading her inner musings.
November 14, 2015
There's just something about about May Sarton's view of everyday life that I resonates with me. I so enjoy this journal of her writing, friendships, garden, growing old, pets and home by the sea in Maine, There is depth to her literary world and that of her friends I think we don't have these days.
August 16, 2019
This book shimmers like foam on the waves of a gentle sea. Sarton writes with a tenderness infused with a love for all of life's minutiae that one tends, so often, to take entirely for granted... A luxuriant meditation on love and life in all its fragility.
August 23, 2023
After finishing my second journal of May Sarton’s I have now mentally committed to reading every journal she’s ever written.
I love the detail with which she observes and describes her life. She gardens—she gives her readers every flower. She cooks—I can taste the freshly shelled peas and cold lobster and wine. And she writes—I can feel the elation and frustration at her writing desk overlooking the ocean.
“Gardening is like poetry in that it is gratuitous, and also that it cannot be done on will alone. What will can do, and the only thing it can do, is make time in which to do it.”
The woman is aesthetic as hell. She’s cottagecore before it was cool. And it amazes me that something written in the 70s can feel so piercingly relatable. She just gets it. She’s a thinker, a modern female philosopher and I just can’t get enough of her thoughts.
I read Journal of a Solitude first, and it was a good call. Definitely my favorite of the two, as I felt like it had a bit more variety in her day to day and was written more consistently and thoroughly throughout the year it spans. But each book has its own merits, and I look forward to reading the rest. I love her view on aging and being a woman in the time period she lived. Her writing gives me hope that I might have a fulfilling life, including—not excluding—my older years.
I love the detail with which she observes and describes her life. She gardens—she gives her readers every flower. She cooks—I can taste the freshly shelled peas and cold lobster and wine. And she writes—I can feel the elation and frustration at her writing desk overlooking the ocean.
“Gardening is like poetry in that it is gratuitous, and also that it cannot be done on will alone. What will can do, and the only thing it can do, is make time in which to do it.”
The woman is aesthetic as hell. She’s cottagecore before it was cool. And it amazes me that something written in the 70s can feel so piercingly relatable. She just gets it. She’s a thinker, a modern female philosopher and I just can’t get enough of her thoughts.
I read Journal of a Solitude first, and it was a good call. Definitely my favorite of the two, as I felt like it had a bit more variety in her day to day and was written more consistently and thoroughly throughout the year it spans. But each book has its own merits, and I look forward to reading the rest. I love her view on aging and being a woman in the time period she lived. Her writing gives me hope that I might have a fulfilling life, including—not excluding—my older years.
March 25, 2024
Qué placer es haber encontrado una autora como May Sarton, es el segundo libro que leo de la autora y espero poder terminar toda su obra.
'Esas mañanas llenas de amplitud, de silencio, de mar, provocan un cambio drástico en el compás diario. ¿O acaso es que me hago vieja y ya no me preocupo tanto por las tareas pendientes? Me las tomo con más calma. Cuando era joven, todo estaba lleno de conflictos, conflictos sobre mi trabajo y la necesidad desesperada de salir adelante, y también conflictos creados por mi forma tan apasionada de relacionarme con los demás. No estar enamorada tiene ciertas compensaciones, y la soledad se enriquece con los años. No se trata de forzar una reclusión; yo nunca seré una ermitaña porque disfruto y necesito la compañía de los amigos. Se trata, más bien, de una cuestión de desapego, de no verme arrancada tan fácilmente de mi órbita por una violenta atracción, de ser capaz de disfrutar sin necesidad de poseer'.
'¿Por qué la gente religiosa suele ser tan molesta e irritante? Según mi experiencia, quienes aseveran su religión rara vez son religiosos en sus actos. Las santas que he conocido, la hermana María Stella, la contemplativa, y la hermana Mary David, que hace un trabajo maravilloso en Beaufort, en una comunidad negra muy pobre, nunca hablan de religión, y por encima de todo, no presionan a los demás'.
'También acuso una profunda insatisfacción con respecto a mi vida - demasiado cómoda, demasiado autocomplaciente. Esta mañana me siento mejor por haber dejado entrar toda esa tristeza, por admitir lo que, durante semanas, he luchado por no admitir: que el aislamiento es también privación'.
'Las mujeres debemos aprender a vernos como seres centrales, no periféricos, para que las cosas puedan empezar a suceder. Todo ello no puede llevarse a cabo en contra de los hombres, y ese es el verdadero problema, lo que realmente me vuelve escéptica ante la actual oleada de literatura feminista que vivimos. Las cosas no son blancas o negras, y las mujeres no pueden ir en contra de los hombres. Se trata, más bien, de encontrar la propia esencia, hacer el camino ya sea con un hombre al lado o sin él, pero no contra él'.
'Esas mañanas llenas de amplitud, de silencio, de mar, provocan un cambio drástico en el compás diario. ¿O acaso es que me hago vieja y ya no me preocupo tanto por las tareas pendientes? Me las tomo con más calma. Cuando era joven, todo estaba lleno de conflictos, conflictos sobre mi trabajo y la necesidad desesperada de salir adelante, y también conflictos creados por mi forma tan apasionada de relacionarme con los demás. No estar enamorada tiene ciertas compensaciones, y la soledad se enriquece con los años. No se trata de forzar una reclusión; yo nunca seré una ermitaña porque disfruto y necesito la compañía de los amigos. Se trata, más bien, de una cuestión de desapego, de no verme arrancada tan fácilmente de mi órbita por una violenta atracción, de ser capaz de disfrutar sin necesidad de poseer'.
'¿Por qué la gente religiosa suele ser tan molesta e irritante? Según mi experiencia, quienes aseveran su religión rara vez son religiosos en sus actos. Las santas que he conocido, la hermana María Stella, la contemplativa, y la hermana Mary David, que hace un trabajo maravilloso en Beaufort, en una comunidad negra muy pobre, nunca hablan de religión, y por encima de todo, no presionan a los demás'.
'También acuso una profunda insatisfacción con respecto a mi vida - demasiado cómoda, demasiado autocomplaciente. Esta mañana me siento mejor por haber dejado entrar toda esa tristeza, por admitir lo que, durante semanas, he luchado por no admitir: que el aislamiento es también privación'.
'Las mujeres debemos aprender a vernos como seres centrales, no periféricos, para que las cosas puedan empezar a suceder. Todo ello no puede llevarse a cabo en contra de los hombres, y ese es el verdadero problema, lo que realmente me vuelve escéptica ante la actual oleada de literatura feminista que vivimos. Las cosas no son blancas o negras, y las mujeres no pueden ir en contra de los hombres. Se trata, más bien, de encontrar la propia esencia, hacer el camino ya sea con un hombre al lado o sin él, pero no contra él'.
December 19, 2021
Several years ago, I discovered May Sarton’s journals. What a blessing it has been to have them keep me company through these last few years of transition as my children have moved away, and I have gone through my own deep,unguided changes, learning to grow into a not-always-welcome solitude. She and Rilke, among others, have become cherished company in my morning readings.
This is the fourth of Sarton's journals that have kept me company over the last four years. I read and loved Journal of a Solitude first, and since then I've been trying to read them in the order she wrote them. Sometimes, she annoys me, but for the most part, I find her voice a welcome and recognizable comfort in my own struggles.
If you're looking for drama and engaging happenings, these journals are not for you. If you're looking to inhabit the slow, thoughtful world of an introvert who finds more comfort in plants than in people, I highly recommend them.
This is the fourth of Sarton's journals that have kept me company over the last four years. I read and loved Journal of a Solitude first, and since then I've been trying to read them in the order she wrote them. Sometimes, she annoys me, but for the most part, I find her voice a welcome and recognizable comfort in my own struggles.
If you're looking for drama and engaging happenings, these journals are not for you. If you're looking to inhabit the slow, thoughtful world of an introvert who finds more comfort in plants than in people, I highly recommend them.
March 31, 2025
When I was 14, I would carry around a copy of “Journal of a Solitude”. Sarton’s artistic temperament resonated with teenage angst. I was enamored with her writing and would start my own journals with “Begin here…” for years, however I had forgotten where I had appropriated that from until now. I decided at 44 to reread “Journal of a Solitude“ and then carry on through all her journals, “House by the Sea” being the third now in succession. You bring your life experience and knowledge to whatever you read and now at 44 I have a completely different perspective on her writing and connect with it on deeper level. No longer about artistic angst, but the drive to fulfill your purpose, time, and memories. “All we can pray is not to outlive the self” she writes in reflection of her dear friend going senile. These transitions of loosing friends, mortality, and analysis of time underpin this journal. It is beautifully written, and deeply moving. Part way through the book I googled “how did May Sarton die?”on a whim wondering where it all leads. When I read she died of breast cancer I burst out crying. Realizing how attached I had become to her voice as an author.
February 10, 2011
This book had a great beginning and ending...the first 69 pages or so were very good then she became boring for awhile.......then the last 50 or so pages were great. May Sarton is an author of books and poetry. She is rather self indulgent and very protective and ungenerous of her time. I thgought I'd give this book a higher rating as iI usually love journals and diaries but 4 is really the very best I can do on this one. I'm wondering wether or not I would like her poetry......will have to check it out.
July 11, 2011
This felt like a hybrid: part journal, part bio. A journal I would expect to be more revealing, but I felt little connection with Sarton and her travails. I'm not entirely sure what her travails were even. I'm not a biography or a memoir fan, and reading someone's journal seems intrusive, but since nothing momentous was revealed, I felt less intrusive. Still, I expected to find out more about Sarton than I did. I guess her self is really in her poetry and novels, not in her journal.
A book club selection.
A book club selection.
January 19, 2013
Sarton's journals are daring, because she is vulnerable in them, sharing her foibles and her fears, her anger and her sorrow, as well as lyrical moments, joys, and insights. Her wrestling with solitude and loneliness - the former a blessing, the latter a curse - is one that those who have followed the path of solitude know well. Because so many friends die in the span of this journal, and because of her own health challenges and those of people she deeply loves, sorrow in _The House By the Sea_ is a dominant tone, as it is for all of us, for some seasons of our lives.
April 11, 2019
May Sarton is best known for her poetry and novels, but I really love her journals and memoirs best. The House By the Sea covers a period from 1975-1976 during her years in a house on the New England shore. She discusses her gardening and her struggles with writing, her sadness at the mental decline of a friend and a former life partner, and her own journey to find meaning in her aging. Wonderful work.
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