Books: Journal of a Solitude by May Sarton

 

 

 

 

“Whatever peace I know rests in the natural world, in feeling myself a part of it, even in a small way.”   (Sarton, May: Journal of a Solitude, W.W Norton & Company, New York 1992, p.16)

"There is nothing to be done but go ahead with life moment by moment and hour by hour - put out birdseed, tidy the rooms, try to create order and peace around me even if I cannot achieve it inside me. [...] And here in my study the sunlight is that autumn white, so clear, it calls for an inward act to match it... clarify, clarify." (ibid., p.33)

Best known for her poetry, this is one of the journals May Sarton published, of a year in her life in the early 1970s when she was approaching sixty and living on her own in New Hampshire. It is a beautifully written account of life in solitude, her inner world, her connection to nature, the changing seasons, her love of gardening and animals, her writing process, ageing, depression and the meaning of home.

Sarton is honest about her flaws, such as anger and being difficult, but her self-criticism is tempered by compassion and serenity. She writes movingly about the redemption (and the restrictions) of  friendship and love, and her journal includes reflections on politics, race, feminism and literature and extracts of her correspondence and from other writers’ works.

I love her descriptions of simple pleasures and how she imbues everything with a sense of wonder. I am obsessed with observing the changing light around the house and the pattern it forms and was delighted to see Sarton detail this play of light and shadow in a lot of her entries. She also creates a vivid picture of the various ways she brings nature into her home - each of those still lifes is seen through her poet eyes. 

As I mentioned here before, the theme of home has been a big one over the past year, and so many of the books I read in 2020 happened to have the houses we live in and the homes we leave or lose as well as those we create for ourselves as a central theme, or perhaps I was more attuned to it in the year my childhood home was transformed and I wasn't able to visit my family. And of course I have spent most of the past ten months at home, and the fabric of the house (with all its issues!) has become interwoven with nearly everything I do.

Journal of a Solitude is the perfect read for level 5 restrictions / stormy weather / any time, especially for introverts. I read this over a stormy couple of days during one of the lockdowns and wanted to re-read it straight away – it is one of those books that you want to revisit and that reveals more layers each time. 

 

Purity of heart

"[...] purity of heart, which, according to [Kierkegaard], is what makes one do the thing, whether it's embroidering an altar cloth or making a crème brulée or writing a story"

(what Edna O'Brien aspires to, as told to Susanna Rustin in the Guardian, 28/09/2013)

My fascination with accounts of old age and what it means and the life stories of septua-/octo-/nonagenarians continues. I have always had friends of all ages and always more older friends than from my own age group, but recently I have been more and more drawn to the elderly. Maybe turning 30 - still quite young, but nevertheless very different from the feeling of being 21- earlier this year had something to do with it, carrying a heightened awareness of mortality and the brevity and preciousness of life.

So I seem to be collecting life-affirming stories by people with plenty of life experience behind them. My almost 80-year old neighbour, who had to endure several tragic losses in her eight decades, was dancing in my kitchen the other day, eyes sparkling with mischief and joy. She regularly goes to a nursing home where she teaches people younger than herself knitting, signs up for courses, travels, exercises and goes to concerts and other events. She probably has a busier week than me.

This piece by Penelope Lively was very insightful, and I loved this interview with Edna O'Brien, one of my heroines. She describes her routine, which includes making "endless cups of rooibos tea" and reading "something astonishing" before settling down to write, as well as going for walks. These are people to whom "retirement age" means nothing and who continue being creative *.

And then there are those who only find their calling late in life and embrace it fully, spurred on by the knowledge that there is not much time left and ending up with a prolific late-life output (Mrs Delany, the subject of The Paper Garden) - reassuring when I worry about having wasted so much of my twenties being depressed when I could have been productive, or, productivity levels aside, enjoyed myself more.
Should I be lucky enough to make it to old age and find myself in reasonable health, I will make sure to make the most of it, with "purity of heart". 

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* though of course there is nothing wrong with just enjoying retirement, whatever that may consist of. My focus here happens to be on writers and artists, because they are of special interest to me personally, and also because most written accounts prerequire that the person is a writer).

Art highlights

 In the Rivera Room at the DIA, with sunlight streaming in

This summer I was lucky to experience two art highlights:

- I got to see Diego Rivera's Detroit Industry Murals, something that had been on my bucket list (which exists loosely in my head and across various notebooks; I have never written one as such). It was impressive, and the new audio iPad tour is worth listening to in full.

- Earlier in the summer a friend invited me to a film about the wonderful artist Pauline Bewick. It explored her creation The Yellow Man (and her Grey Man, representing a darker side, who emerged from sessions with a Gestalt psychoanalyst) and was absolutely beautiful.

Yellow Man Grey Man is available from the director Maurice Galway's website. He currently has a gorgeous picture of Pauline from the film on his home page. There is more information, including a short video, in the news section of Pauline Bewick's website. 

"It's rather sad really. I was searching for the perfect society. That's why I went to The South Pacific and that's why I invented The Yellow Man. He to me is perfection. I created The Yellow Man because if our society were made up of Yellow Men it would be a marvellous place." ~ Pauline Bewick

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On a much smaller - but personal - scale, I was delighted to come home to the second issue of Skylight 47, a poetry publication, which included one of my paintings. 

 

Galway Bay Folk Tales

Rab received copies of his book Galway Bay Folk Tales (published by The History Press Ireland, illustrated by me) this week, and it is so lovely to have something tangible and beautifully produced at the end of a project. Of course this is mainly Rab's work - for every simple black-and-white picture I drew (one or two per chapter) he laboured over hundreds and hundreds of words, bringing the myths and legends to life with his unique storyteller voice. And the History Press did a fantastic job of putting it all together, with everything that entails. 

 The gorgeous cover illustration is by Katherine Soutar.

 

Art in fiction

I posted the following on my other blog a few days ago - that blog is about all things art-related, but since I also write about art here, there are often overlaps in terms of topics, and very occasionally a post will appear on both blogs. So apologies if you have already read this.


I love when a writer is able to successfully conjure up the world of a fictional artist, down to imagining and describing their oeuvre. Siri Hustvedt is excellent at this - she does it in all of her novels, if I remember correctly, and part of me wishes someone had actually created all this work, though it is very likely that its manifestation would not live up to the shape it has taken on in the reader's mind. Perhaps the magic lies in the fact that it doesn't exist beyond the page. From the eerie portrait in The Blindfold  to the embroideries featuring taboo subjects made by an old woman in The Summer without Men, these are pieces that reside in my memory alongside all the actual visual art I have absorbed. Another author who evokes and details the artistic output of her protagonists is Deirdre Madden. I have just read Authenticity, and both the abstract paintings by one of the central characters (stripes in pastel colours, compared by one critic in the book to 'the pale flags of imaginary countries') and the other main protagonist's  boxes with objects that can only be glimpsed through fluttering ribbons still linger in my mind.

(Inventing an artist's work in film, while not depending on words to capture it, poses the challenge of actually having to show it and be convincing, whether that means finding a real-life artist whose existing work will serve that purpose or commissioning something suitable. When I watched the 1998 version of Great Expectations as a teenager, I was moved by Finn's large-scale drawings.)

An extract from Rab's new book (which I illustrated)

And now for some shameless advertising...

Saint Patrick: How Croagh Patrick got its name

Below is an extract from Galway Bay Folk Tales, the new book written by Rab Swannock Fulton and illustrated by Marina Wild. The book retells the dark and strange myths, folklore and urban legends of Galway and the west of Ireland. The following is an account of Saint Patrick’s fight against pagans on Cruachán Aigli, the hill that would be later known as Croagh Patrick.

           When finally Patrick stepped a foot on the ground before Cruachán Aigli, pagan resistance erupted all around him, before, after, below and above him, with a savage and desperate ferocity. Druids and Immortals cast abominable spells, giants hurled rocks and witches used the subtlest of deceits. Satan and the Sea throw in their lot shrouding the landscape in terrible poisonous vapours. Patrick walked through it all, his love and grief blazing like a fire. 

            In the higher ramparts of Cruachán Aigli pagan scholars and students trembled behind the walls, whilst young guards gripped their weaponry and vowed to fall in the sacred hills defence.  Through fire and mist the figure of Patrick was glimpsed drawing hourly closer.  The terror that assailed him was reflected back a thousand fold on his enemies and spread out north, south, east and west.  

The pagans in the upper reaches now trembled and wept with fear as terrible reports and rumour fell amongst them cold and sharp as winter hail: every assault on the enemy only made him stronger; beyond Galway Bay the beautiful magical horse children of the original defeated Tuatha Dé Danann hurled themselves screaming off the cliffs above the spitting roaring Atlantic; the worlds beyond this were in chaos as Divinities struggled to agree stratagems, some vowing eternal war, others vanishing into dreams, a handful advocated switching sides to Christ, if only to avoid warfare without end. 

Patrick reached the final ramparts, but met no resistance there.  His triumphs had subdued the few pagans that remained behind the stone walls.  Soon Patrick was on the peak of the hill, the connecting point between this world and the realms beyond. Determined to cleanse the site of all traces of foul paganism, he vowed to fast there for forty days.  The enemies of Christ attempted a final assault, but the great black birds that attacked the praying Patrick were pushed back by a glittering host consisting of angels and souls of the Saved. 

Over the days and weeks of his fasting, peace came to Cruachán Aigli and the witnesses who witnessed the old man fasting on the hill top gladly converted to Christ.  The site of the evangelist’s triumph was soon referred to by the new devote name of Croagh Patrick. On the fortieth day Patrick, weak from hunger and thirst, stood up. Leaning on his crook he raised his right arm and began to slowly turn in a circle. His gaze and blessing reached across the entire island and soon nearly all the Irish willing embraced God’s light.

But Patrick’s triumph was not quite complete. As he turned around on the top of Cruachán Aigli he stumbled and so it was that his holy favour did not quite reach all the island’s inhabitants. The unblessed remained resolutely pagan - a malign cancerous presence in the pure Christian body of the Irish.  Was it simply age and battle weariness that caused Patrick to stumble, or had some pagan demon tripped him as a final jest? 

Another possibility is that Patrick himself was to blame. That when he fasted he was not humble enough before God’s power and grace. When the glittery host had saved him from the shrieking birds it was observed that one of the lights had momentarily alighted beside Patrick, placed a hand on his shoulder and whispered. ‘Enough.’ But the triumphant Patrick was determined to finish his fast and in this endeavour become the equal of Moses, Elijah and Christ.   

         The places remaining in the snare of Satan and paganism were said to include Erris in Mayo and Dunquin in Kerry. Of graver consequence was the failure to convert to Christ the three islands separating Galway Bay from the Atlantic.      

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Galway Bay Folk Tales is published by The History Press. 

For details see Galway Bay Folk Tales on Amazon.

For more about Rab, go to his blog. 

with Rab Swannock Fulton

"A door between me and the world" - on Marion Milner's A Life of One's Own - Part I

"I had sometimes found changes in mood follow when I tried to describe in words what I was looking at. So I said: 'I see a white house with red geraniums and I hear a child crooning.' And this simple incantation seemed to open a door between me and the world." 

(p. 55, Milner, Marion, A Life of One's Own, Routledge, Hove, 2011)

I have been wanting to write about the psychoanalyst, artist and writer Marion Milner (1900-1998) for so long now. These two books have accompanied me ever since I bought them, especially A Life of One's Own. The right books always seem to come to me when I need them, and this is a book that I know will be re-read many times.

Written in 1934 as a record of her seven-year quest to find out what makes her happy, it has a timeless quality and ranks among the classics in happiness literature.What she advocates is very Power of Now and mindfulness practice: that happiness is to be found in the space between thoughts, in letting go, in being in the moment, in being an observer instead of analysing.

The book is a very personal account, which makes it all the more absorbing and ultimately universal. The writing is beautiful and deep (yet very accessible), her sentences mirroring the movement of her thoughts, often in a stream-of-consciousness style. She is also as honest as possible, chronicling her petty thoughts, vanities, fears and failings as accurately as her eloquent musings and successes.

I will not attempt a summary or review as such, but mainly compile the parts that I want to remember. Here are those from chapters 1-4:

Milner starts by recording her experiences and feelings in a diary and soon comes to understand that the act of seeing is more important than what she sees. Writing helps her access her automatic self "beneath the ripples on the surface of my mind" (p.38): "It was as if I were trying to catch something and the written word provided a net which for a moment entangled a shadowy form which was other than the meaning of the words." (p.47)

She begins to notice that frequently thoughts get in the way of her enjoyment when, for instance, listening to music, visiting a gallery or watching a play. Feelings of inadequacy tend to intrude because she reckons she doesn't know enough about the subject and therefore cannot take it in properly, but she finds a solution: "I lost myself in a Schubert Quartet [...] partly by ceasing all striving to understand the music, partly by driving off intrusive thoughts, partly feeling the music coming up inside me, myself a hollow vessel to be filled with sound." (p.23)

All her insights lead towards inactivity and letting go and simply delighting in things. She discovers that she can move the core of her "I-ness"around her body, feeling herself into her heart, for example, to quieten her mind. Her awareness needs to flow around things she sees and does and expand from her body, as "my usual attitude to the world was a contracted one, like the sea anemone when disturbed by a rough touch" (p.51). She finds that this expansion, "that fat feeling", has physical benefits - it makes her breathe more deeply, refreshes her and prevents exhaustion.

 The pattern the leaves of a tree make against the sky prompts this response: "I had an aching desire to possess the pattern, somehow to make it mine." She thinks of drawing, yet doesn't have the time. Instead, she lets her awareness flow around the trees and their patterns "till their intricacies became part of my being" (ibid.).

At the zoo she finds "Joy in the animals and joy in the desirelessness of shapes" (p.18), and on another occasion, watching a little boy in a sailor suit dancing and skipping: "I thought what an awful thing is idealism when reality is so marvellous." (p.24) More often than not it is the simple things and nature she is drawn to. When writing down what she wants, one conclusion is "To give up to the creative chemistry and live among things that grow - a child, a garden and quietness." (p.27)

Apart from perceiving, she finds that doing things could also be altered by moving her awareness. When darning stockings, she notices that when she detaches and just lets her hand do the work, she derives pleasure from what she used to perceive as a chore. The realisation that a loose arm makes playing ping-pong easier leads her to relinquish the way most things are taught, with its emphasis on trying and effort. (for more on this, there is another wonderful book called The Art of Effortless Living). 

Chapter 4 ends with questions that bother her, such as: If just looking was so satisfying, "why was I always striving to have things or to get things done?" (p.56)? Thus, Chapter 5 is titled "Searching for a Purpose".

To be continued...

 

Glimpses

 on the easel

"I will not have any clear blocks of time to give the new book until next year. I have fat files of facts. I don't have its spirit. But I am beginning to sense it. As winter closes in I feel as if I am opening the door of a child's Advent calendar. Each picture is tiny and in brilliant colour. Each is a glimpse, each is separate. But as the days go by they will add up to a story."  

-Hilary Mantel in The Sunday Times Magazine, 9.12.2012


I feel the same about a couple of new projects. Winter is a time for slowing down but also for letting ideas develop and brew, subconsciously perhaps. I was talking to a friend about this yesterday who felt unproductive and frustrated - even if nothing seems to be actively happening, our minds process things all the time, and in quiet periods we are still constantly adding to our artistic well, simply by being in the world, seeing, reading, listening, feeling. And occasionally we get these glimpses of what is preparing to emerge.

I am getting ready to go home for three weeks, and usually the time spent there yields a lot of new thoughts and renewed enthusiasm (though I harldy need to renew that).

Love, life, etc.

Allardice, Lisa, "A Lesson in Love", p.20, Review Saturday Guardian 03.11.12

After I bemoaned my temporarily slow reading pace in my last post, I decided to remedy the situation, and today I have done little else but read. There are enough unread books in my house to last me well into the new year, but thanks to the Guardian's Review section, my to-read list is ever-growing, and with the allure of the new I can become greedy. I have to remind myself that the unread books I already have are just as new as the ones that are out there in the world waiting. I will resist the temptation to buy new books for now, but I suddenly feel it is absolutely vital for me to read Colette.

I have never read anything by her, but I think I will enjoy Break of Day (her memoir-as-fiction account of spending a summer alone in her house and garden in the middle of her life, turning to the natural world and away from love), which has been reissued by Capuchin Classics. I am still reading Marion Milner, and this appears to be similar territory, if completely different in style - women artists finding themselves seems to be a recurring theme for me. And of course I couldn't help noting that Colette was a crazy cat lady - another recurring theme and something I aspire to...

In the meantime, I am going back to poetry. I don't tend to re-read novels, unless they are favourites, but the great thing about books of poetry is that they get re-read - and thus energised - a lot (I do subscribe to the Feng Shui view that books that just sit on a shelf untouched become dead energy).

Sylvia Plath was one of my first loves. Faber and Faber has just published a collection of her poems chosen by Carol Ann Duffy, and in her article for the Guardian she emphasises that, although influenced by confessional poetry, for Plath "craft was as important as the exploration of self", that her poems move beyond the life they draw from and take on a life themselves. Duffy also reminds us that despite the often dark themes, there is a playfulness to Plath's work, which displays her "great appetite for the sensuous experience" and her interest and delight in the shaping of the poem. 

"Poets are ultimately celebrators, of life and poetry itself. A vocational poet like Plath gives life back to us in glittering language - life with great suffering, yes, but also with with melons, spinach, figs, children and countryside, moles, bees, snakes, tulips, kitchens and friendships." (Duffy, Carol Ann, "Permission Not To Be Nice", p. 14, Review Saturday Guardian, 03.11.12)

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Speaking of poetry, I love this from William Carlos Williams's Paterson, posted by Leo Babauta on Zen Habits today.

"The little winters of life"

early morning bird, September

“If, when you look clearly at the situation, you seem to be making the right moves and the world isn’t responding, it may be time to take the desperation out of your voice and eyes and respond to the deeper rhythm of events. You may have entered a period of winter. Winter isn’t terminal, it isn’t death. It’s simply time to hibernate, to turn your energy inward and do your growing underground.

Westernized culture doesn’t support hibernation. People lead global 24-hour lives where nothing ever sleeps. TV, radio, news, transport, light, heat, internet all keep going like a funfair. Nothing switches off any more and life is full on, or seems to be, so when it goes quiet for us it seems like a violation of the natural order, but it isn’t.

[...] ‘To everything there is a season’. [...] If you look closely at your own life you can see it too. The rhythm changes. Sometimes things flourish, events pile up. Sometimes life feels as though it’s gone into slow motion, even stopped.

I’ve found that the way to survive the little winters of life is to keep working but to reduce your activity and greatly reduce your expectations. At times like these it never works to force anything. When the sea is rough, mend your sails.   

[...]These are times for editing your possessions, harvesting your resources, evaluating your progress, learning new skills, cultivating friendships, catching up on reading or sleep, caring for your body, going within and reconnecting with your dreams. There may be lessons to be learned and now you have the time to learn them. Your maps may need to be redrawn and now you have the time to redraw them, knowing all the time that the season and the energy will shift. “

(from "When the Sea is Rough, Mend your Sails", a chapter in Lesley Garner's Everything I've Ever Done That Worked)

This summer was my winter, and it continues, even though I am slowly coming out of it - just when the actual winter is drawing close. A friend did a Tarot reading for me yesterday. It was precisely about the above, about going with the flow, having no expectations, no goals, and just being in the moment and looking after myself. I have exhausted myself wanting things to be different in a certain area of my life, and with work I am trying to get things done, which at times can feel like forcing them, but I am able to prioritise and realise that nothing is that important, and I have days when I am in the flow and everything seems to make sense.