After the Stroke (10 page)

After Karen and Debby left I washed the dishes, tidied up and had a nap, or rested, till half past three, time to get the chicken out and light the oven. Later Pat and I had a wonderful peaceful hour on the terrace watching the sunset at the back of the house reflected on the ocean and in the sky. It had been dark blue in the late afternoon, then became absolutely calm like pale blue satin, with a dark line at the horizon which Pat noted made it look like a Japanese print. Finally the clouds took on a rosy glow and the sea became
pink.

After supper and in bed at about ten, I heard an owl hooting repeatedly—and finally answered by another owl. I woke Pat up to hear it. Before this she had tried to track down Pierrot with a flashlight. Elusive creature, he loves to be chased and hates to be caught. I went down at ten and called, and then he did come in and ran right upstairs to my bed—but it was hot and he did not stay. The floor is best for him when it is over eighty, but the night was pleasantly cool by the time I got to sleep.

Wednesday, August 13

Pat is a tremendous help this time—sees things that need to be done and does them, and we are having a peaceful, talkative, homey time as I had hoped we might. From her room the raccoon's mischievous attacks on the bird feeders are only too audible—the wire clatters and bangs.

We sat on the terrace earlier on and had tea but Raymond, suddenly assiduous, drove up with his lawn mower which he said did not work after all—so typical—but then he stood beside us and we talked of this and that for a half hour. He looks diminished and much older these days. I am the more grateful that Diane York, a friend of Karen's who lives in Kittery, will come early Friday morning to take the rubbish—and Raymond will be released at last. She will start work soon on the invasion of wild blackberry that is getting serious among the daffodils.

Yesterday I began to work on the poem for Bramble. I felt it would be the test and prove I was well—and I have worked on it again today and—glory be!—played music, two Mozart concerti.

Thursday, August 14

The beautiful weather holds cool and bright with a little breeze in the evening. I am so happy for Pat. The only misery is her having been terribly bitten by mosquitoes when she lay out on the terrace day before yesterday and was
devoured.

We are having lunch with Nancy and Edythe at the York Harbor Inn, and I go to the hairdresser for the first time in two weeks this morning, so time is running away at a fast clip! Eleanor will be here cleaning soon—it is just after nine now.

I am exhilarated by the decision to go on the lecture tour—that rapid descent into real old age has been stopped. And I am going to be all right—after all I felt very unwell all last fall on the road and that was a triumphal tour. The only bother is clothes—but I have enough. I'll manage.

Pat amazes and delights me with all her talents—she has three pianos in her flat in Ipswich, and brought her flute and also painting materials with her. How slowly one gets really to know someone, but now I feel we are building a solid foundation. It is a treat for me to be with someone who has read so much—thought so much, too. And, of course, in a strange way we meet on European ground.

Jean Dominique's birthday today—how long since she died? And hardly a day passes that I do not think of her. [And as I think of her I often think of “La Petite Espérance” which Péguy speaks of, and which is so hard to translate. I went back to an essay Jean Dominique wrote for the Brussels
Soir
in 1939 to find exactly what Péguy had said and what Jean-Do had said.

The great tremor of our souls and of our thoughts has been bathed this year as in 1914 in an ideal season. A pure warm sky has shed on the first days of September an abundant peaceful light which resembled—anguished though hearts were—an immense banner of profound hope. Instinctively, eyes that looked for signs, as they looked out on the thick leaves over gardens and avenues, began to count the invincible reasons that man has to honor life by a happy impulse of his whole being. The majesty of trees became a lesson in confidence and balance, as did the elastic resistance of grass, or the trembling attempt at flying of late butterflies chasing each other above the phlox …

Nevertheless more than ever before we must sustain that hope, and we verify at every moment that it is for Péguy (and for God himself when Péguy listens to him speak) the most beautiful, the most necessary, the hardest of virtues.

“I am,” says God, “the Lord of that virtue.

“Faith is a great tree. It is an oak rooted in the heart of France. And under the wings of that tree, Charity, my daughter, shelters all the pain in the world.

“But my little Hope

“Is she who every day

“Greets us with a good morning …

“Faith is a cathedral rooted in the heart of France.

“Charity is a hospital which picks up all the misery in the world.

“But without Hope, all that would be only a cemetery.

“My little Hope is she who goes to bed every night.

“And gets up every morning.

“And has really very good nights.

“I am, says God, the Lord of that virtue.”

When my Dutch friend Hannie Van Till was in a Japanese prison camp in Java for four years, with ten thousand women, she told me that if they had known it would be four years they could not have survived. Hope kept them alive.]

Friday, August 15

Today is little Sarton's sixth birthday—so life goes on. I can hardly believe that I am well, went down through the wet grasses to pick a few nasturtiums for Pat. This is the first year they are plentiful and I feel sure it is Karen's feeding of them that did it. Calendulas are out, a very few small zinnias, a few bachelor's-buttons—only the self-sown nicotiana and opium poppies in their pink ruffles are really flourishing this bad summer for flowers. But at last there is something to pick and someone to pick for. I was too ill even to go down there for months.

Saturday, August 16

Anne Woodson called yesterday to tell me there was an obituary about Robbins Milbank in the
Globe.
I feel an awful pang that that sensitive and committed man is no longer on earth. It brings back such vivid memories of Nelson, of dinner with Helen and Robbins, and a wonderful picnic by the lake with Julia and Paul Child.

Pat left after lunch, managing somehow to carry her heavy bags to Edythe's little car in a misty rain. It gave me a strange feeling to walk back into the empty house—but we had good days and I do feel so much better it is marvelous. I am putting on my life again like a dear old corduroy jacket, worn but comfortable. It has been such an
un
comfortable life lately.

Sunday, August 17

Oh dear it is now half past nine, so I think I must try to get up at five again instead of six. But it was such a joy to go down into the picking garden and pick a bunch of nasturtiums, then a great white lily and a few vermilion snapdragons to put around it—and nicotiana to freshen up a bouquet, and a whole bunch of calendulas, some pale orange, some with green hearts—at last they are doing well.

Before that I had washed my sheets, put on fresh ones, put away the dishes from the dishwasher—oh, and filled the bird feeders. The raccoon had pulled down the huge one, but I managed to fill and hang it, something I could not have done a month ago.

And now I am at my desk at last—looking out on a whitish ocean, which means hot humid air.

Pat called from New York so the little thread is there between us again—and all is well here for a change! All except the rapidity with which time flows away!

Monday, August 18

Such a heavy humid day I decided to run into Portsmouth to get a new blotter and pad for under the typewriter—and birdseed—now thirty-seven dollars for fifty pounds of hearts of sunflower! But they last longer and do not make a mess as sunflower seed does. I enjoyed the trip, but of course
not
writing letters after nine-thirty this morning simply adds to the mountain at my left.

I got Xeroxes of the fall poetry tour—it looks fun and not too tiring—and had a few copies made of my poem for Bramble too. It is still not
quite
right. But when I put on a Mozart concerto and wrote it last week, even though it is not good
enough
, I knew I was well at last.

With the grasses all golden now, the path through the field is a bright green ribbon as it winds down to the sea.

Tuesday, August 19

Before I go to sleep, old forgotten poems often come to mind, this one by James Stephens in
Kings And the Moon
for instance. I had forgotten his charming inscription and was happy to find it again. This poem, “Tanist,” comes back to me now because I have been struggling with a new problem. I used to be able to give lots of money away—the needs are everywhere. But as everyone insists that I do, illness has made me face the fact that I have what I earn plus social security—and a small income from the Shawmut Trust, not enough to live as I do and feel able to give large amounts away to individuals. So I have to deny myself generosity and sharply curb the galloping horse. This poem haunts me as it always has for we never do enough.

Remember the spider

Weaving a snare

—And that you did it

Everywhere:

Remember the Cat

Tormenting a bird

—And that you did it

In deed and word:

Remember the fool

Frustrating the good

—And that you did it

Whenever you could:

Remember the devil

And treachery

—And that you did it

When you were he:

Remember all ill

That men can know

—And that you did it

When you were so:

And then remember

Not to forget,

—That you did it

And do it yet.

A poem with great weaknesses, yet it has haunted me—at least it stabs smugness to the heart.

Another muggy day but the LeShans are coming at five to take me out to dinner—and that is a rare event.

Also Hurricane Charley has blown out to sea.

Wednesday, August 20

A wonderful day yesterday because Eda and Larry LeShan drove up from New York to celebrate with me their forty-second wedding anniversary! I didn't know what the occasion was except that they had been concerned about my health and we have not seen each other for a year, but I was touched when I heard what day it was for them. Luckily I had put a bottle of champagne on ice.

Larry had a severe heart attack in the spring, so we talked quite a lot about hospitals and he insisted that I write to the director of Massachusetts General—which I must do for the sake of others who have suffered as I did. Annella Brown called the other day and told me that a friend of hers had been kept in Emergency for six hours, sitting on a hard bench. It seems unbelievable.

Larry looks extremely well and is determined to smoke his pipe again soon. In the course of our conversation Eda said that when there was a certain kind of silence in the apartment, she knew Larry was reading my journals, which he has read and reread. “They give me peace,” he said. Other people have said so, but his praise means a great deal—and so much for those who think of me as a writer pleasing only women!

They were very kind to Tamas who revels in attention and when he gets it almost becomes his old self again. Meanwhile Pierrot had disappeared—he had followed me down to the picking garden at around four and didn't come back, but thank goodness I did hear a mew at the door and knew he was safe before we left to have dinner at Dockside.

We sat at a splendid table in the window looking out at the harbor and off to the side so it was not noisy. I had a simply delicious sole stuffed with lobster. Eda had her ritualistic Maine lobster and Larry had a seafood mixture. This was followed—except for Larry whose doctor insists that he lose weight—by praline and walnut ice cream pie. Wow!

This morning Tamas managed the stairs so I shared my breakfast with him. It is the only intimate time together now and I treasure it. Pierrot displaces a great deal of atmosphere and comes to lie beside me at night—but I miss dear Tamas. I had to give up coaxing and laboring to get him upstairs at night when I was ill, and this is one of the real losses of old age as he and I grow old together. He is very lame these days.

The LeShans must be about ten years younger than I, so I felt rather proud to be myself and nearly seventy-five.

People imagine my life here as peaceful and sedentary, but they can't imagine of course what human problems pour in here every day. Yesterday a parcel which contained a letter and a cassette. An aunt whose nephew is dying of AIDS begged me to listen to the cassette, a concert which included his setting of two poems of mine—and to write him. I'll do that today.

A long unhappy letter from an old lady shut up in a nursing home—we have corresponded for years, and whatever else I don't do, I must write to her.

Thursday, August 21

Yesterday was perfect, clear and cool, and again today everything shines and sparkles with just a hint of autumn in the air. I went out to the garden and worked for a happy hour, cutting back the autumn-flowering clematis which had taken over half the fence, smothering the larger and more beautiful clematis that flower in June. Of course I am discovering all the things Karen did not have time to do. The lilies are doing very well; they had to be staked with longer stakes. It does seem very odd that the picking garden is finally, in late August, giving me flowers. Next year I'll buy more flats as the snapdragons I bought in flats are at present “best” of the lot. As usual self-sown nicotiana has taken over flower beds and must now be pulled out. The calendulas are delightful. I love the silky orange ones with green hearts.

It is impossible to write letters morning
and
afternoon, so I have decided to get back to my old routine of gardening in the afternoon—a way of rinsing my eye and feeling whole again. It is hard to say how tired I am of responding by letter, even to dear friends. The endless answering was always a problem, but now with diminishing energy—I have to remind myself that
I am
nearly seventy-five—it often seems beyond my strength and will.