by Anne Sexton
Dearly Anne, my dear. Take care of yourself and stop riding around in that truck with no brakes.
love you
from.
your cry baby babby
nope it’s baby
CRY BABY
[To Anne Clarke]
[40 Clearwater Road]
july 3rd, 1964
Anne Luv!
Happy happy to get your two (or one and a half) letters today. Actually, and as usual I surely don’t have time to reply. But as I was sitting here (all crampy) and in a judge of self thoughts I thought … well, I said to myself, if you can afford to sit here thinking (and rereading Annie’s letter 3 times) and then just thinking again, well you’ve got time to think ALOUD to Anne.
Now what I mean when I say the word “thinking” is more complex than it first appears. There are some things I am not doing … not worrying about “through dooms of love” (Maxine’s novel) because it is all wrapped up until we get the proofs back and have to go over it word for word. Not for some time I hope. Also I am not thinking about Kayo and myself because we are fighting all the time and we do not communicate (but not hitting) and I am not thinking about that. What I am thinking about is the kind of thing Linda seems to be thinking about. Linda, that dearest garden, is slowly withdrawing in order to wondrously observe her body. I say to her with obvious delight “Linda, you’re like a garden! Something new every day!” (Linda smiles softly at this remark, a hidden flash of pride in her blue eyes, a tiny flicker of the dimple and a shy shrug.) The remark was upon discovery by me that Linda had three hairs under her arm. I didn’t count them OUT LOUD. But I mentioned them and she said, sure, she knew about it. Well, you know what I mean … it’s so lovely and it breaks me up. (Kayo, naturally, is more reticent on the subject … but happy too.) Well, that kind of thinking … Linda’s getting born. And me too, getting kicked out the womb you might say. It’s enough to make anyone thoughtful and terribly vulnerable. So. Thinking … thinking … can I bear? Will I make it? Who will I be when I’m only me and not his? Get it? Sure you do. And meanwhile back at the ranch, I have had another huge fight with him and that took time and (this was last thursday) I passed out for six hours (don’t analyze, but just for your direct info) and that took time (but it counts up as thinking time because it ain’t sleep—more like a nightmare or more like anesthesia … when I said this, this morning to Deitz he wrote it down …) … and Martin and I have made it up and it was all part of the game … false labor you could call it … and on his part too. Not too easy for him to leave me. Anyhow, to indicate the exact heat of my emotions I called Marianna [Pineda, a sculptor friend of Anne’s] today and asked her if she could make me a little piece, maybe a relief called LEAVETAKING (she had made, built, sculpted you call it, for someone else who was going through the same birth-death trauma and I loved it) … So I guess I can give him a little goodbye present … and I know it will be lovely because her work has the right feeling, my kind anyhow. I hope he will like it. I love him. Plain as that. So I’m thinking about that and about the tape I have to listen to and Deitz today and Martin yesterday, Martin tomorrow, Deitz the day before, Martin the day before that … and etc. Every day SOMEONE and then a tape and these tapes can’t be glossed over, too important content, etc. And also, two or three days ago I started a poem to Linda and I haven’t had time to work on it. And today I thought of how to begin a play about Nana and about me and about Venice. And also I am trying to integrate what Deitz says before I forget it, having no tape. And I do like Deitz. And he doesn’t scare me. And he knows what I mean when I tell him he has got to learn to talk “language” which is a new term for what I think I talk. (By the way, you talk language, but that’s beside the point. Or rather, you understand it, you don’t always talk it) … It is hard to define. When I was first sick I was thrilled (a language word translate, relieved) to get into the Nut House. At first, of course, I was just scared and crying and very quiet (who me!) but then I found this girl (very crazy of course) (like me I guess) who talked language. What a relief! I mean, well … someone! And then later, a while later, and quite a while I found out that Martin talked language (tho I didn’t name it until this week). And that’s the story.
By the way, Kayo has never once understood one word of language.
Linda does a little.
Maxine does. (Much more now than she used to. She used to only understand it in a poem. But now she digs it in other areas.)
I don’t know who else does. I don’t use it with everyone. No one of my whole street, suburb neighbors …
Clover[’s] eyes are full of language.
Doc Deitz doesn’t speak it. But he is interested. Maybe that’s a good sign.
Language has nothing to do with rational thought. I think that’s why I get so horribly furious and disturbed with rational thought.
Language is the opposite of the way a machine works.
Language is poetry, maybe? But not all language is poetry. Nor is all poetry language.
That’s the trouble with me.
Language is (i.e.) when I said “I have room.” […]
Who me? Sailing around like crazy in LANGUAGE whatever it is and then brought up short by reality (what is it, really?) …
If this is a crazy-sounding letter, dear one, please consider the turmoil I’m going through and the pressure of this constant one day one Doc, the other day the next, and etc. And the pressure of the end of July. (Goodbye Doc Martin and Doc Deitz will return from Brazil (he leaves the 11th) on August 6th or something.
And meanwhile the poem for Linda [“Little Girl, My Stringbean, My Lovely Woman,” LD], the play for Nana, go unwritten, unborn, and I mumble language to the trees by the pool as if they knew and am fiercely resenting anyone who doesn’t talk language (and now it’s an obsession).
Well, nevermind. I think language is beautiful. I even think insanity is beautiful (surely the root of language), except that it is painful.
Language is verbalizing the non-verbal. (That’s what makes it so complicated.) Holding hands is better than saying “I love you.”
When Kayo shoots squirrels it is better than saying “I hate you.”
When Sarah plays she is saying “I love myself again.”
… that’s part of language. Language in action is symbolic. Language in words is, too, but it is more difficult to follow.
To eat raspberries (I just ate a cupful) is to live. To take sleeping pills (four a night every night as I do) is to die.
To write you, even about this silly LANGUAGE is also to live.
you might say!!!
[…]
… thinking …
UNDER A BLUEBERRY MOON
[Later retitled “Little Girl, My Stringbean,
My Lovely Woman”]
My daughter at eleven
(almost twelve) is like a garden.
Oh darling! born in that sweet birthday suit
and having owned it and known it for so long
now you must watch high noon enter
as last month in Amalfi I saw lemons
as large as your desk-side globe,
that miniature map of the world,
and I could mention too
the market stalls of mushrooms and garlic buds
all engorged. Or even the orchard next door
where apples are beginning to swell.
And once, in our first back yard, I planted
an acre of yellow beans we couldn’t eat.
But what I wanted to say, darling,
is that women are born twice.
That’s the poem for Linda, unfinished. And this letter too is unfinished but as I said a while ago in my language way, all my letters to you are unfinished, otherwise I’d have to wait up for the ash-can man.
Me
In August, another breakdown sent Anne to the psychiatric ward at Massachusetts General Hospital. This visit was to change her life substantially—for during her hospitalization Dr. Deitz prescribed Thorazine
, a new antidepressant. Although initially Anne complained that the drug stopped the flow of her creativity, soon her life became more stable, and she was once again able to work. For the next few years the fugue states were eliminated and there were fewer suicide attempts. But photosensitivity, one side effect of Thorazine, was difficult for Anne to accept because she so loved the sun.
[To Alfred Sexton]
[40 Clearwater Road]
august 17 [1964]
Dearest Boots,
It is now after 2 A.M. I can’t even type, the pills and all I took at 10. But I had to say … one, 16 years ago we were at the Hotel Cavalier and I love you. I love our marriage. It’s sixteen times better than the childish dreams we had then. And more—we never lost the dreams, they just grew bigger.
But what I wanted to say is that I’ve been sitting here rereading part of play Lucy [Foster, her secretary] typed and making changes again and of course, I thought I might tell you that I feel guilty about the play. Talk about rivals, talk about jealousy. This is a rival you can’t call a Nazi, can’t blame me for, can’t throw up in my face to make me feel guilty. So you have to sit on sidelines, chewing your jealousy over and over. Alone with it. Who would sympathize? I’m supposed to be a genius or something. But I know, who wants to be married to that—you wanted me, not the sound, the frenzied sound of this machine … Whatever takes me from me, absorbs me, that will make you feel left out. I know. Jealousy is the same, corrosive thing!
What I want to say is that I’m sorry; that I know it’s very self-absorbed, a shutting-Kayo-out. The play is simply using me up. But, Boots, if I knew I’d always be turned on this way I would force myself to control it—as it is I haven’t been turned on for this length of time (and a large work requires a length of time) since I spent months, long evenings and into mornings, trying to write “The Double Image” [TB]. I didn’t think it would ever come back—and I feel it’s my rare chance to catch something good and get it down. It’s leaving you out and I know it and I am sad for this but since there is only one me, since I must choose (that’s a laf. some choice. The play chooses me and demands to be written. I didn’t choose. I couldn’t.) If it weren’t for the pills I’d stay up all night and all tomorrow and forever, playing my violin while I’ve got one (you might say) … But it won’t always be this way—someday I’ll be back looking at T.V. with you, loving you, being silken gown with safe or no safe. I promise. Please wait for me. Meanwhile maybe the play will turn out good (even if Sandy and Les fell asleep … I’m working on it so they can’t next time) and we can have yachts and whatever we want, summer camps, summer sailing camps, private school, or something silly-wonderful-extra. Forgive me, meanwhile for this trip I’ve made into a play that has, in reality, so little chance of success (any kind, either financial or literary-avant-garde)///// But I got to stay with it—it’s the “Double Image” [TB] magic and that turned out good, after 6 months of work, turned out to be my best poem, a real poem at that. I’ve been hanging on its coat tails ever since, never really writing a poem like that … and it was written in 1959 or was it 58 … anyhow long time ago … 5 or 6 years. If the magic only comes around every 5 or 6 years I got to use it, just got to.
But I am sorry, sorry for us, sorry because it does leave you alone. No wonder other girls seem attractive, you don’t even have one, all you have is a crazy acting typist.
But she loves you for real and Button will be back. I promise.
from Ike – Mike – Button all the rest –
Anne
[To Anne Clarke]
[40 Clearwater Road]
tuesday august 25
6:00 A.M. [1964]
Annie love,
Just a note … sitting out here in my room watching dawn come, seeing the mist rise off the golf course and the yard. Listening to early morning radio. They just played “I left my heart in S.F.” and I thought how I had left some of it there and it was a long time since S.F. had heard a beep-blip from me. Annie, dear-one—last week went to New York City with Sandy and saw 7 plays in four days. Exhausted and poor but it was worth it. Got my first check from Ford and spent same. I am not seeing anyone or writing anyone—I’m on my 8th draft of this play and how many more—God knows. Boy are the old fingers tired of typing! Plays, I think, are harder to write than poems, stories or novels. I advise you not to try. Do you realize how many unpublished unplayed plays are written every year. About 15 new ones are produced per year as against 5000 novels! This is madness!
Speaking of madness … manic me is under control thanks to Thorazine … except for one day in New York when I forgot to take it and went out and bought a four feet high stuffed DOG (for myself). He is very funny—looks great in bar at the Waldorf and the Sheraton in New York. In a bar he is a ball! Coming home he had his own seat on plane, strapped in just like the rest of us. Dog enjoyed his first flight, via Eastern Shuttle to Boston. Right now he is sitting in corner of room with his red tongue sticking out at me.
… I think Doc Deitz is very smart, very intuitive. He looks like a bookie but he thinks like a whiz. And he takes my work seriously. Me too. All I do is work … not out in sun much—can’t anyhow cuz of Thorazine, Deitz very embarrassed he didn’t warn me about that. He said “I thought you said you were going home to work—I didn’t think you’d go outdoors”!!!… I told him I’ve been known to write-work out of doors too … and especially after two weeks of being sealed up in a locked ward with no air, no sky. So now he knows … Wish I cld send you the play but it’s too fluid … it keeps changing, not the plot but the words. You can take one page of a play, I find—any play and rewrite the dialogue fifteen times and learn from doing it. Try this—I recommend it. This is Sexton’s self-taught idea sent on to you in this sometime correspondence school.
The foliage this year will be nothing but wrinkled brown leaves … they are not turning, but just drying up. The drought. No color without some water..… I will give you a few lines (favorites of course) from play. Daisy, our heroine, is angry with Doc.
DAISY:
Guilty! Guilty! That’s what I am. Why don’t you admit it! Admit it, Doc! (standing and pacing up and down). What makes you think you know everything, Doc? You’re a dog-god, a no good God damn dog or a Doc. All you do is sit here watching your precious little clock. Ha! (snatches up his clock) Hello little clock, Tickety-tockety-clockety. Who invented you anyhow? Freud, that fraud. Little clock, little clock what makes you stop? What you need is a sock, little clock (smashes Clock on his desk front) How do you like that, you—you little Doc Clock!
DOCTOR:
Stop this right now, Daisy. I won’t stand for it!
DAISY:
Poor little Doc Clock, did someone hurt your face, bang it out of place? And your little hands, oh poor little Doc clock is hurt.
DOCTOR:
Daisy, stop it! I’m not that clock. I’m the one you’re angry with, not the Doc Clock. You act like a child, kicking her dolls.
DAISY:
Dolls I kicked and walls I kicked but no one real did I ever do in.
DOCTOR:
It was the real people that you wanted to hurt.
DAISY:
Real people like you, Clock-Doc? Doctor Alex’s clock with a face like a clown, brown clock, brown clown! Oh! you’re a naughty clock of a Doc. What you need very much more than a sock is a KNOCK! (throws clock on floor and stamps on it) A knock and a knock and a knock.
DOCTOR:
(takes her by arms and throws her on couch) Stop it. Daisy. Stop this minute. There!… There! Stay there, for God’s sake.
DAISY:
Oh!
DOCTOR:
Satisfied?
DAISY:
You have no understanding. You’re a locked up Doc!
How’s that, Annie—pretty active, pretty manic talking Daisy … can’t write you on onionskin paper—all gone. All paper gone but this yellow. Figure you don’t care if it’s yellow long as it’s me.
with love as always …
Anne XO
[To Anne Clarke]
[40 Clearwater Road]
tuesday … oct 13. [1964]
Anne dear,
I just sealed the letter of friday for you. It stinks. Now I write, marking time … waiting for Dr. Deitz to call back. (Having already typed out yr envelope. Not knowing. He sd. he’d call back at 8:20 … it is now 8:10.)
Anne, I don’t want to live. I’m only writing to tell you about it, not to warn you. Him I’ll warn. You I’ll tell. Him I’m NOT THREATENING. Who’s to threaten anyhow, no one. Only me do I threaten. Only me do I kill. No one else. Now listen, life is lovely, but I CAN’T LIVE IT. I can’t even explain. I know how silly it sounds … but if you knew how it FELT. To be alive, yes, alive, but not be able to live it. AY that’s the rub. I am like a stone that lives … locked outside of all that’s real. AY! That’s the rub, locked out. Anne, do you know of such things, can you hear???? I wish, or think I wish, that I were dying of something for then I could be brave, but to be not dying, and yet … and yet to [be] behind a wall, watching everyone fit in where I can’t, to talk behind a gray foggy wall, to live but to not reach or to reach wrong … to do it all wrong … believe me, (can you?) … what’s wrong. I want to belong. I’m like a jew who ends up in the wrong country. I’m not a part. I’m not a member. I’m frozen. And because I’m just so frozen I drink to simulate [stimulate?] it; a drug up too, I want to sleep all day and night (i.e., not live but not quite die) …
