After the Stroke

by May Sarton

  I had much to think about when I went back to my room for a rest and to prepare for the poetry reading at Hermitage in the afternoon, hoping I could do well as several of the Sisters were to be there.

  While I lay down, looking out onto trees, I thought about what I had been experiencing here, and felt the powerful magnet a conventual life holds. But people like me who are given a taste of it cannot realize what such a life costs. These Carmelites earn their living by typesetting distinguished religious books. I was shown the big rooms where all this is done, the computers, the presses. That is one side of the work accomplished each day, but there is also the household to be maintained, meals to be cooked and washed up after, laundry to be done. The cooking is shared, but who polishes the endless polished floors, who waxes the furniture? Meanwhile, the true work of the monastery is prayer and meditation—that is what a Carmelite community is all about. I came to see that what looks so peaceful, so full of order, has to be won and re-won every day by hard work. I, as a guest, could feel the charisma because sixteen remarkable women had given it to me as an unearned gift.]

  I must not forget to catch up on the last two evenings I shared, first with Skip Sauvain at his home and last evening with Rusty Moe at his house. Rusty is responsible for bringing me here under the auspices of Hermitage, an ecumenical religious center where he is a therapist. I have known them for several years, first as fans, I suppose, then as friends.

  Skip is a great gardener—as is his mother—how often this love is inherited! He has a small house with a garden at the back and an adorable patapouf of a dog, a delicious scramble of several breeds. Rusty’s home is rather splendid, filled with color, high up, looking out on a river or creek through very tall trees. He had made a thick vegetable and meat stew which I’m afraid I insulted when he first told me, “I’m going home to make vegetable soup. Would it be all right for dinner with some bread?” It sounded like a few cabbage leaves and potatoes and I had come a long way!

  But the open fire, and the good talk, and what turned out to be an excellent stew shamed me—and we laughed about my reaction to the idea of “mere” vegetable soup.

  Bloomington, Monday, October 13

  I am a total fool—wanted to wear my white turtleneck sweater this afternoon and found I had left it at the monastery. I do want awfully to go back someday, so maybe leaving it says so plainly.

  Rain again. When I was here at the university two years ago, there was such a deluge I thought nobody would show—but they did! A full house.

  The reading yesterday went very well—a warm loving audience, and a beautiful introduction by Rusty who read one of my mother’s letters. Oh dear, it brought tears to my eyes—then the applause when I got to the podium was so welcoming, so long and enthusiastic, it was hard to receive without breaking down in this ridiculously frail state in which I find myself these days. My legs nearly folded under me but I did sit down for a minute and that helped.

  Bloomington, Tuesday, October 14

  It was a hard day yesterday, hard to say good-by to the Carmelites—and then I figured out when I finally went to bed a little after eight last night, I had been with people for nearly five hours. First the drive with Harriet Clare to Bloomington, unfortunately in the rain, but it was open rural country all the way. Harriet has two bookstores, one here in Bloomington and one in Indianapolis, and had arranged the book signing for me. Her bookstore is called Dream and Sword (from a line of Amy Lowell’s “Books are either dreams or swords”). She took me to her bookstore here before lunch and it was heaven to be in a feminist bookstore. She had Allende’s huge novel which I wanted—and Margaret Atwood’s just out book of short stories which they will send along. Such an open-armed, welcoming place, with a tiny room at the back where one can read or talk.

  We had lunch with her manager here, Sid Razer, and a journalist and poet whom I had met before.

  Then at four-thirty someone came to take me to a party for the newly launched “Women and the Arts.” It was fun for me to meet some of the painters in it, one of whom is immersed in Kinds of Love at the moment. Her husband is getting his degree here in Comparative Literature. Mary Ellen Brown, who heads Women’s Studies here, had just flown back yesterday from a Congress in Jugoslavia!

  I had forgotten altogether what the academic atmosphere is like—and felt like a stranger. Tonight is my huge effort, the reading of As We Are Now. Susan Gubar is to introduce me.

  We had a wonderful Chinese dinner—and a very cheerful easy time—lots of laughter. The dean of faculty, Anna Royce, made the fourth.

  Laughing makes me remember that the best thing that happened on Sunday was to read poems to the Carmelite Sisters after supper with them. It was such a happy reading, fragrant with their intelligent warmth and love—and there was one hilarious moment when in the middle of my reading the elegy for poor old Scrabble, they all burst into gales of laughter and it was contagious. The line was

  Goodbye, dear Scrabble,

  You took much and gave little

  But then when I read it again with what follows,

  And perhaps that is why

  You were greatly loved

  they understood, of course. I loved the laughter although it took me aback for a second.

  The mal du départ is over now and I enjoy being at Elyce Rotella’s again with George, her housemate, her young nephew Mark, and their two cocker spaniels. Elyce looks wonderful—full of joy, plump, with curly dark hair—the most life-giving person I’ve ever met in the academic world—completely herself. She is an economist and has also been active in the feminist group at the university, wears old pants and shirts to teach in. She looks more like a student than a professor. She and George are the kindest hosts imaginable—and my room feels like a nest now. Always the transition from one place to another makes me feel cold and lonely, but now I have a photo of little Sarton with Tamas up on my bureau, and all is well.

  Bloomington, Wednesday, October 15

  I did a good job last night and can now enjoy the last three days here without such a load of anxiety on my back. The hall was not full. Last time, in driving rain, it was SRO, but this time we were competing with the Hispanic mayor of San Antonio! I suppose there were two hundred fifty or three hundred there. The audience was absolutely still while I read in a good strong voice, thank goodness, and there was no coughing at all. The hours I had spent condensing and cutting As We Are Now really paid off—though I had to cut to the bone and the balance between acute anguish and some respite had to go. Susan Gubar gave a very feeling and well-planned introduction. I do like and admire her so much and enjoyed seeing her here for supper before the reading. Elyce is a wonderful cook and gave us lasagna, and since she does all she does with apparently the greatest ease, there is never any tension.

  Bloomington, Thursday, October 16

  I have been struggling to choose the poems for the reading tonight on “Ordeals and Epiphanies”—it turned out not to be as easy as I thought!

  Notes on things to remember:

  The train’s hoot and watching it go by at Le Petit Café—oh, so nostalgic!

  The charm and excitement of talking yesterday at lunch with five writers in the graduate school. I have rarely conversed with such a rich assortment of talents—two have first books of poetry coming out.

  The good questions a professor asked at the open discussion yesterday.

  The sense of Bloomington as a town, the wide garden spaces, the beautiful trees, and the classic Courthouse Square.

  Few people at the book signing at the Unitarian church yesterday, but that meant less pressure than usual, and I enjoyed it and having the chance to talk again with Laurel, the minister.

  Then a delightful small dinner party.

  Bloomington, Friday, October 17

  After one day of rain, what luck to have fine autumn weather although the leaves have not yet turned—and it must be glorious in this tree-rich town and campus when they do.

  The reading went well, an
almost full house this time. I don’t believe, however, that the selection of poems quite worked. It turned out to be more somber than I would have wished. But people applauded very warmly and stood at the end. I feel I have done two out of three readings very well, as well as I ever have, which is encouraging. I think I shall hazard California in April.

  Yesterday a lunch was given by Marion Armstrong for some of the library staff and library school—again a charming house—but what delighted me most was to hear about her great-grandfather’s farm which is still in the family, maintained by a group of nieces and nephews who none of them live there but share in keeping it up, and luckily all have different skills. What a dream!

  I have also to mention the best dessert I’ve ever tasted, some kind of persimmon cake topped with ice cream. I had not realized that persimmons grew in Indiana—my father’s favorite fruit. We always had one or two at Thanksgiving time in Cambridge—but they were expensive as they are still in Maine.

  Sunday, October 19

  Home again to a blue ocean and the leaves at their most glorious—oh, how beautiful it is! But as usual I am beaten down at once by the avalanche of mail that waits for me after a mere eight or nine days away. I want time to think it all over, to savor a sailboat floating past, the evening shadows in long bars over the field today—don’t remember that form before in other autumns.

  It is the more striking because in Bloomington it was just beginning to change—though Elyce took me on a drive through real country the last afternoon and here and there the late light shone through orange and yellow—and was reflected in a still lake as in a dream.

  Among the enormous mail I found a delightful letter from a stranger and cannot resist copying this part of it here. The town is in Kentucky and will remain anonymous.

  This town was not quite ready for a single, female business executive. For example, after six weeks of labor in the yard, my next door neighbor came by:

  N. “I wanted to introduce myself and tell you that your husband has done a lovely job on the yard.”

  ME. “Thank you.”

  N. “You know, I don’t see your husband around very much.”

  ME. “Neither do I.”

  N. “What exactly does your husband do?”

  ME. “I’m not married.”

  N. (gasping) “Oh, you poor unfulfilled girl!” Even at my relatively young age, I am received as “damaged goods.”

  Wednesday, October 22

  I do not choose my life these days, it chooses me. I’ve been home now for three days and these things have happened—or been done: on Sunday I did a laundry, then came up here to tackle the huge mail and try to sort out priorities; I began to plan the spring tour which I now know I can do, so called Rod Kessler at Salem College to say I could come in March, and he called back yesterday and set a date; I called all the friends, Lee Blair, Anne and Barbara, Maggie Vaughan. Then there was a startling call from Roberta Scarabelli who is at the University of Milan and who is doing her senior thesis on my work. She had written ages ago to say she would be over here in October but gave no definite date—and that call took me completely by surprise. I had so much to do, was racing against time, that I was quite angry—oh dear. She wanted to come here “for just an hour” but that would have meant her taking a bus to Portsmouth, my picking her up there, a half-hour drive, and taking her back. I could see no such crack in my already chaotic two days before Pat was to arrive.

  Then, later, a call came from Connecticut about an interview for Down East which I have scheduled for Saturday, November first, the day after I get back from Orono—mad! Meanwhile on Monday Carol Boss, who is arranging the Albuquerque reading, called to say she is in Maine and could I see her and two friends. I had a hair appointment at eleven on Tuesday so suggested they pick me up there and I would take them to lunch. All this was yesterday with Pat arriving at three! At least it proves that I can get things done.

  Yesterday morning I rearranged the flowers, gave them fresh water, and Foster’s gave me twenty magnificent pale yellow striped-in-red parrot tulips—so I had a largesse of tulips and gave Nancy some to thank her for all her patient work filling out medical insurance forms for me. They are now bearing fruit with two sizeable checks in the last days.

  The pile up is the usual one plus planning for Albuquerque and San Antonio and the spring tour, which is now in the works, plus Christmas as I get home finally only on December fourth!

  I did manage real letters to Juliette, Pauline Prince and to Jean Alice, the prioress. Oh yes, also packed ten or twelve books for the Carmelites and sent them off. So there is a massive amount of detail to sort out every morning. When will I get to the poem about the Carmelite experience?

  A perfect day—at six the sun rose, a huge red globe over a calm pale sea.

  Thursday, October 23

  Yesterday was a good day for taking Pat to what must surely be one of the most beautiful rooms in the world, the New England Center’s dining room, especially at this golden season. The building is set in a deep cleft, a ravine really, between towering cliffs, boulders left by the glacier, where all sorts of trees have taken root over the centuries. The windows are perhaps fifty feet high, set in octagonals, so one sits and can see a tree from its root up to its highest branch—the light on the topmost leaves, and far below striking a small beech tree.

  It turned out to be Pat’s fifty-fourth birthday—and I did not know it, but we celebrated with fine sweet and sour shrimp and baked Alaska! I have not tasted that and the thrill of ice cream baked under meringue for perhaps forty years.

  We stopped off in Portsmouth on our way to get birdseed, kitty litter and paper-white narcissus bulbs. I have just arranged them in two bowls and they should flower when Edythe is here house-sitting at Thanksgiving.

  There is a titmouse at the feeder—first one this year.

  Weather incredibly gentle as the leaves begin to sift down, one thin gold disk after another.

  Saturday, October 25

  On Thursday we took off for North Parsonsfield to see Anne and Barbara after picking up lobsters—a hazy, gentle day with clouds shot through with light, the kind that made us both murmur “Constable.” It was a marvelous time, warm enough to sit out for a while and hear about the tame bluebird Anne had saved two years ago and who came every evening to be fed after he got well. Just before migrating they heard his “talking” in the maple and there he was, come to say good-by. It is astonishing, the faithfulness of this wild bluebird. He had five friends with him, but had not nested in one of the bluebird houses in the field, Anne thinks, because there was an ever-present hawk this summer.

  Major, the large brown rabbit, is in a new, bigger cage and was sitting on top of his nest—a large cardboard box—chewing at it and not in the mood to be petted for once.

  I had said when we arrived that we must take off for home by three—the animals were alone here, I had had no rest, and am trying to pace myself to stay well. But at two forty-five we had just finished the cake Pat had brought and Anne and Barbara were very anxious to take Pat down through the woods to see their two ponds, moose and deer tracks, and all the work they have done to clear it out down there. I said we had to leave. Barbara insisted very sweetly that it would only take a few minutes. I felt unbearably pressured and burst into tears and fled out to the car, beside myself.

  Later Pat said a very insightful thing, “You get upset like that, angry and full of woe, when you have to say NO.” It was apt because I had done the same thing on the phone when I got back from Indiana and Roberta Scarabelli called and expected me to see her for an hour. She is writing a paper on Faithful Are the Wounds at the University of Milan. I had just two days to pull myself together before Pat’s arrival and I simply could not do it. She had no car. Anyway I now understand myself better and that helps. Roberta called back and we had a long talk on the phone followed by a letter with ten questions I promised to answer. Relief that she called back, but now I have to give a lot more than an hour!


  Tom Barnes sent me a very good essay on what I am all about by Dr. Kathryn North, a psychotherapist in Princeton, New Jersey: “Creative Solitude” (Desert Call; Spiritual Life Institute, Fall 1986). It was a great pleasure to read what North sees in my kind of solitude and why I am as I am.

  Another happening has been a joint review of The Magnificent Spinster and Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, titled “A Tale of Two Handmaids”—a review dealing with values chiefly—in the Fall 1986 Kenyon Review.

  Tuesday, October 28

  With Pat here—and it has been a seal on our friendship to see her here once again before her return to England—I am rarely able to get to my desk in the afternoon, which means that it is a scramble to get the mail in order the next morning.

  But today, after hours of work every morning, I have at last completed the ten complex questions Roberta Scarabelli asked me about Faithful Are the Wounds. It was not the right time for this and today after a final hour’s work I feel really spent. Nancy is typing it out now. Fortunately I found four pages of carbon copies of the letters I got at the time from many professors all over the place, including Mark Schorer. I had forgotten how generous the response was.

  Only Harry Levin, sure that Goldberg was a portrait of him, poisoned the Harvard air so that even now it is clear that I shall never be invited to speak or read poems there! Actually I based Goldberg on a man I saw once at a meeting. It was hard to go back to that book and think about it after so many years. It came out in 1955—so, over thirty years ago!

  One day Pat helped me plant a few bulbs and as it is warm and sunny I may put some in this afternoon after she goes. It was great fun to work together in the garden, but for the last two days it has rained—in a way soothing days, after all the brilliance. Nostalgic autumn days—I enjoyed them.