Argonauta
Sunday, March 12th, 1972
Darling Reeve,
Your long letter, written in the snowstorm while Richard was at the town meeting, is here on the desk and I’ve just read it over again. You are probably now over the mood but I have to answer it anyhow. I ached when I read it (about wanting to write and feeling you never would) and smiled, too.
I wish you could read the diaries I am now working on, where I say the same things, harshly, to myself. “You say you want to write but what have you ever done to show for it?” etc. I was then expecting my second baby and was very gloomy and self-castigating about everything. (“What have I ever done but take—take—take all my life—never given back,” etc.) But I was carrying a baby and that is not a good time to write; you are putting everything creative into a child. The same is true of you now. You should not be trying to write now—at least, not anything structured like a novel or a short story. There is, as you say, not enough time (for a sustained effort) and too much time (for self-criticism). For heaven’s sake, don’t make this a test period. You are nursing a baby, which takes a lot of energy and is a time of wordless communication. And you are recovering from the nine months of pregnancy—and now the change back to “normal life” which isn’t quite normal yet. You say when you try to write you get “plunged into gloom, resent the baby, and dislike” yourself, all indications that you are tired and haven’t enough extra energy. You are driving yourself at the wrong moment.
I do think you will write. I feel quite sure of it—but in what way or when I wouldn’t know. I think you will write because you are incredibly perceptive about people and relationships and life situations, because you have a feeling for words and images and a drive to express yourself. And also a strong sense of cadence in a phrase.
You say you can’t find your own voice. It is true what Richard says, that people always start by imitating. But I think there are other ways of “finding your own voice” than by imitating—and hating every word you put down. (Yes, I often feel like that, and words are clod-heavy blocks of wood, not a writer’s tools at all.) You say you “have a hard time identifying ‘yourself’ in the crowd of other people’s writings.” All this adds up to the same thing: not hearing your own voice. I think you should try to find it.
My first suggestion is to stop reading! Or at least, to stop reading the kind of things you think you’d like to write. This makes you compare yourself all the time and makes it harder to hear your own voice. Read something different: poetry or anthropology or education or something quite unrelated, just for fun. (Poetry might be good because if you read it a lot, you might start writing in that form, which doesn’t take such a sustained effort. You could jot down things—ideas, images, even as you nursed.)
Then start writing. Just a little—scraps—every day, a diary or a record of the baby, or anything trivial—but of the day, of where you are now. This is not to produce anything. It is just practice in being aware and will show you how much you observe, see, feel, and can articulate. Like your record of teaching, which you did when you were tired, but which has your voice in it. Don’t try to make it a continuous record—just jottings down, scraps, observations: the birds, the cats, the snow, Molly, and people. I think if you do it steadily but not obsessively, you will find you enjoy it and you will eventually “find your own voice.” It might not even be a notebook—just a folder with scraps of ideas in it. It’s the daily putting down of observations that helps you to feel where you are. It’s going against the grain to try to be where you’re not. (Does this make any sense? It is a little like Krishnamurti saying you must be aware of all the outer things first: the tree, the sky, the cat, someone’s face.)
There is a lot more to say but now I must go water those 115 cuttings (I planted ten more after your father left) before it gets dark. As I put on my old sneakers and take the trowel and hose and especially as I squish the muddy water with my wet sneakers, I see Mrs. Woodbridge in her old shorts, hair over her eyes, and hear Mr. W. saying pontifically, “My little girl has never been so happy as puttering around this place!”
Have finished the watering, almost, by dark. Some of the hibiscus cuttings have tiny sprouts, after ten days. Your father has been away ten days and will probably be away ten more. (Did he tell you?) He is flying from Mexico straight to the Philippines for an emergency—on the Monkey-Eating Eagle and the tribal situation. I am very disappointed, as I expected him back today. However, I don’t feel as desperate as I did last year. (No floods, no mud, no rats—so far.) I have lots of work to do and am working hard at the introduction to Volume II (quite difficult, but it interests me).
Despite the lovely weather and beauty of the sea and sky, if I’m going to live alone, I’d rather be in Darien or Switzerland where I could telephone you or Ansy or Scott, and occasionally see you and your child—children! However, this year it’s probably just as well I’m away from home with the pressure from the first volume and quite a lot of work to get through before June.
Speaking of writing—who is a writer? When does one qualify? Virginia Woolf, Elizabeth Bowen, Eudora Welty, Flannery O’Connor, Jean Stafford? None of whom, as far as I know, had children. A woman writer is, to quote a nineteenth century writer, “rowing against wind and tide.”* We cannot—or only with the greatest difficulty—produce a great “body of work.” Why—as John Barkham, a reviewer I once met [asks about me]—“as an eager and talented writer [has] she published so relatively little in 40 years of marriage? After a promising start with those first books on flying, she tapered off into long silences broken by an infrequent volume of verse or prose.” He is, of course, right and it still bothers me: the books I didn’t write. In fact, I don’t consider myself “a writer” but a woman who sometimes wrote.
And it isn’t just being a woman. It is some other deeper conflict between art and life. Yeats wrote a number of remarkable poems on the conflict between “perfection of the work or of the life,” which tortured him also. But he was a real poet and writer, and that side won out. With me, I think “perfection of the life”—the “why” or the “whether” of life—haunted me more. (Or one might say the religious point of view interested me more, or the understanding of life—psychological or religious—and I wrote less because of this obsession.)
So how much one writes, or in what form one writes, or how soon one writes isn’t the most important thing. One has to live one’s life and follow one’s thrust, whatever it is. One reason I think you’ll write is that you’re married to Richard and he is an artist (one of the few genuine ones I’ve ever met). And he respects and recognizes the creative process and he will back you in your creative efforts. (I think Julien does the same for Anne.)
It is now time for the climb into bed, to read one of those sleep-producing paperbacks. It is a fairly peaceful life although isolated. I am rested, sleep, and look better than I did a month ago. I am working hard, which is satisfying and which I probably wouldn’t be doing at home (you have to be quite bored and lonely to work this hard).
The land is somewhat lifeless here (no animals except mongooses and rats), but the sea is very alive and I see great whales (or their spouts and tails) quite often. The marvelous thing about whales is their rhythm—great, slow, and ponderous, like the Pacific: easy rolls and flips as if they were playing and not in a hurry, like elephants in Africa. They are totally in tune with the element they inhabit.
Must go to bed—much love, darling. Don’t agonize over the writing—I’m sure you’ll work out your life right.
XO XO
Mother
Argonauta
Monday, April 3rd, 1972
Dearest Ansy,
I must say, Father has really done it this time! “Lindbergh and the anthropologists have been living in isolation with the 24 surviving short, dark-skinned Tasadays for about two weeks.” “The world’s only surviving cave-men … on the side of a steep mountain deep in the southern Philippine rain forest,” etc. Yesterday mo
rning (listening to the news after the Jon L.’s all left for home after their week’s vacation), I was startled to hear about their helicopter having broken down and their running short of supplies. I listened all morning but heard nothing more. In the evening, my neighbors brought me a Sunday paper saying the expedition had radioed for help and that an Air Force helicopter was going to rescue them, equipped with winches to pull team members up to the helicopter. No news this morning.
I don’t know anyone better equipped to survive in the jungle than your father. He probably will enjoy eating the cave-men’s food (if there is any left over) of “roots, palm pith, flowers and jungle vegetation.” But how about those other forty-four anthropologists? Can they digest it?
And the thought of a helicopter pulling up the forty-eight members of the expedition, through a dense tropical forest with trees 45 to 150 feet high gives me nightmares. I hope there will be some news today. Sam Pryor (of Pan American), who is my neighbor, was going to try to get some information through Pan Am in Honolulu. I wish the Jon L.’s had not gone; we could talk about it. They had really a very good week, although incredibly strenuous. They tumbled out of their rented ranch wagon late Sunday evening, looking pale and wilted after a five-to-six-hour plane ride, then a short plane hop to Kahului, on the other end of this island, and then a three-hour drive down this tortuous cliff road, mostly by night. I had swept, made beds, prepared hamburgers and salad and flitted all the windows and doors for ants. They were too tired to eat, but drank gallons of milk and went to bed. Barbara had bought a mountain of food for the whole week (better stores in Kahului). And we had to rearrange the icebox to get the most perishable packed inside.
I had not put up the tent, so the two little boys slept on cots up in the two-bed guest room, with Krissie and Wendy in the twin beds. And Lars and Leif slept on air mattresses on the living room floor (like the chalet), and Barbara and Jon in the double bedroom downstairs.
It was midnight Seattle time before they got to sleep, but everyone was up at six the next morning, with pancakes at the counter (cooked by Krissie), before they all disappeared into the landscape—Lars and Leif to explore caves in the cliff and to the beach to watch for whales and porpoise, Krissie and Wendy—in short shorts and long long mermaid hair—to the Pryors’ guest cottage to find the Pryor grandchildren, also here for vacation (one of them is a very attractive boy about Krissie’s age, with whom she has corresponded; I suspect collusion on their vacation). Only Morgan and Erik were left roughhousing around the terrace. Jon got up late and looked rested, and we all went swimming in the Pryors’ waterfall-pool at 12:30.
Since then, the days have flown and merged into one another so I can’t remember. The tent was put up and various people slept in it. Barbara and Krissie did most of the cooking. I shopped (for sleeping bags, fishing rods, hooks and bait, more knives and forks, sun helmets, yogurt, dry cereal, and gallons and gallons of milk). But Barbara also seemed to have time to make jars of guava jelly and jam! (Picked from wild guava trees in the back of our house.)
She also helped me put up curtains and plant flowers. Jon led us all on a long hike up a canyon to a very high waterfall. (He walks with a slight stiffness but can take long walks and has quite a lot of flexibility.) We swam every day (very good for Jon). The little boys had snorkels and loved it. We hardly saw Krissie and Wendy at all; they were always off with the Pryor boys, who had brought their motorcycles! Leif spent most of his time fishing (I am still finding moldy bits of octopus bait in my icebox). Lars collected what he thought were Hawaiian stone grinders and bowls (granite stones which I will keep as door stops since Barbara refused to pack them and lug them home). (How “we gather as we travel—bits of moss and dirty gravel.”)* And yesterday morning early, they all left with sunburned noses and wet bathing suits in plastic bags. Barbara took two jars of guava jelly and the rest are on my shelves.
I spent the rest of the day gloomily defrosting the icebox and throwing out Leif’s bait—in between listening for news on the radio. I’ve also discovered there’s a mongoose hiding in the house, under the icebox or the washer-dryer. (There were so many doors left open all week and mongooses love to come in and look around for food.) I keep finding his spore, which is long and narrow, just like everything else about a mongoose: long tail, nose, etc. In fact, you might say a mongoose was all nose—or all tail—whichever way you look at it. I have now put half an old hamburger on a paper plate outside the cracked living room door, hoping to lure him out. But perhaps it will only lure other mongooses in?
Much love to everyone. Must now start to eat my way through the leftover food in the icebox. I love hearing about all Charles Feydy’s marvelous games and conventions—constructions. I wish I could see Constance sit down, letting go backwards—an act of faith—a crucial part.
XOXOXOXO
Mother
Scott’s Cove
November 21st, 1972
Dearest Ansy—
I meant to write you on or after Reeve’s weekend home (two weeks ago). She arrived with Elizabeth, Richard, Molly, and two kittens she had got from a Tibetan retreat near Barnet. (She has named them “Dalai” and “Lama” after the Dalai Lama!) Also, a young poet* I met at the Benedictine seminar and his wife arrived for Saturday evening, and your father unexpectedly turned up Saturday night. Full house!
It rained off and on all weekend. Richard went to town all Saturday and practiced on his flute all Sunday, while Reeve and I walked (in the rain) with the baby carriage and the dogs and the poet and his wife.
Reeve and I snatched your manuscript† out of your father’s mail. I read it first, straight through again, with just as much excitement. The end is much better, I think, a great improvement. Reeve then read it straight through. She said she couldn’t criticize it at all, she was so interested. Lastly (because he came home after we’d read it) your father read it and I know he has sent you a long letter about it. Chiefly, he thought (in criticism) that it was rather slow at the start, though once you got into it, it was very, very good. He thought the end could be tightened. I’m not sure; I was satisfied with the end. I am not sure the beginning isn’t a little slow—perhaps I gave you a wrong steer by suggesting you put in more Paris background (that could all be easily cut down).
Thanksgiving a.m.: very cold but bright and sunny
Krissie and her roommate, Rebecca (Kellogg from Concord, Mass.), arrived yesterday afternoon in blue jeans and pigtails, with knapsacks on their backs. They drove down in Rebecca’s car. Rebecca is blond and Krissie is dark but they are both quite tall and look alike—like overgrown little girls. (Krissie is now called “Kristina” by her college mates. The telephone has been ringing for “Kristina.”) I gather they are planning on seeing all their classmates who live around N.Y. during these three days. We went out and fed the ducks and geese from “nut island” in the coppery sunset, then they sat on the sofa and played duets on their recorders while I cooked supper. At the last moment, I learned that Rebecca is a vegetarian, so threw in a frozen cheese soufflé. (Maybe we can make that marvelous mushroom pie you sent me the recipe for. Krissie loves to cook.)
We asked them about Middlebury—very interesting but very hard, also bad food—this is true of all colleges. Your father asked them whether they studied problems of natural selection and the genetic pool and they looked baffled but listened attentively. Kristina likes her writing classes, especially poetry, and she and Rebecca are taking a religion-philosophy class they like. And they have bought a secondhand upright piano with no back, which they have squeezed in their tiny room, and both play.
I have been buried in 1,100 pages of new, uncut, unsorted, and unpunctuated manuscript (Volume III)*—very dull, painstaking work. And your father is sorting out his mail for the past six months. It is all spread out over the living room tables, chairs, and sofas. His “study” has turned into a storeroom and it is so full of bins of mail, boxes of books, magazines, files, etc. that he no longer works there. He will be around a while n
ow, since he is working a lot [with] old records, letters, etc. for two books that are being written about his father and grandfather. He commutes back and forth to New York or the Yale Library. We plan to go to Reeve’s for Christmas, but probably won’t get to Maui until February.
I’m afraid I won’t do anything for Christmas because I am so chained to my desk on this infuriating detail work. It isn’t “writing” at all. It is criticism, and seeing how bad it is. It is also like doing endless puzzles—fitting things into holes. However, it makes your father happy and he is encouraging, “Oh, don’t cut that—it’s interesting!” (Helen doesn’t always agree!)
It has been a rather funny fall: the wettest November on record. And it seems to me so many friends are ill or dying (I have just reached that age when that class above me is dropping out) or have some chronic disease or a curtailed life. Aunt Edith is still going strong, but Dr. A. has lost the sight of one eye. Alan Valentine is almost deaf. Uncle Dwight had a clot that (temporarily) paralyzed his arm. Corliss* was in the hospital with phlebitis and Ellie Lamont just died of a stroke. (I saw all of the old guard—North Haven etc.—at her funeral service.) These are not accidents but the natural cycle of life. One has to accept it and be sympathetic, but it is nice to sprinkle one’s acquaintances with the young, so that you don’t see only the aging. Reeve and Richard and Elizabeth, Kristina and Rebecca and others. (I miss you and J. and Charles and Constance—but your letters are wonderful—and don’t try to write too often—your own work is more important.)
Aunt Margot is ageless and has a beautiful big tent-like red coat that brings cheer whenever she sails into a room! I bought (this rainy month) a rosy-wine-colored velveteen raincoat, because I think one wants to put on something rosy on the rainy days. I also bought a long black and white plaid wool skirt and a pair of black and white plaid slacks, which I’m wearing today. Your father remarked at breakfast, “I don’t particularly like those trousers.” Ah me! I thought they were smart. (The way he said “particularly” made me realize that he “particularly” disliked them.)
Against Wind and Tide: Letters and Journals, 1947-1986 Page 33
