|
Post by christina61 on Nov 8, 2008 18:39:21 GMT 2
November 8, 1982
"...This morning I am fully aware that the presence of a muse literally opens the inner space, just as November light opens the outer space, and when the trees are leafless I am given a wide hemisphere of ocean. The clutter falls away. The nonessential things cease to trouble the mind. A miracle indeed. One the other hand, for the first time since my birthday (May 3, 1982) the fact that I m seventy is with me as a warning. When I saw Dr. Chayka to check on my heart the other day and he said all was well, he asked me at what age my parents had died- each before seventy-five. And later in our talk he mentioned that as far as he could see longevity has a lot to do with heredity. I took that in when I got home. But the discipline this time must be, with the muse, to make every effort to live in eternity's light, not in time. If I begin to think of how little time we shall have at best, panic sets in, pressures build up. To live in eternity means to live in the moment, the moment unalloyed - to allow feeling to the limit of what can be felt, to hold nothing back, and at the same time to ask nothing and hope for nothing more than the amazing gift of poems. A love affair at this point is not in the cards, but poetry is here, and that is all that matters."
At Seventy, A Journal, May Sarton, W.W. Norton, 1984
|
|
|
Post by kbecker on Nov 11, 2008 0:52:01 GMT 2
"To live in eternity means to live in the moment, the moment unalloyed - to allow feeling to the limit of what can be felt, to hold nothing back, and at the same time to ask nothing and hope for nothing more than the amazing gift of poems."
This is wonderful. Thank you for sharing these jewels.
|
|
|
Post by arielpf123 on Nov 13, 2008 1:25:25 GMT 2
I love Sarton's journals and this entry in particular speaks to me. On Sunday (11/16) I turn 71, and even to say those words fills me with dread. I can easily remember when I thought 50 was very old, and on that same day I"m 71, my daughter turns 50.
I am sitting here stunned thinking "but it was so short! this life."
Yes it is the day that counts...living in it, living it. But sometimes now that's hard to do, less energy , and often pain from the fibromyalgia....so that part of living these days also is withdrawing in order to preserve what energy I have. When I was back in social work school learning about life stages, I read how there is a tendency when old age sets in to draw in, perhaps for protection and safety. I remember thinking then that I would never do that...and yet now I do.
I teach a Lifelong Learning Class of vital 60-88 year olds. It's a poetry reading/discussion course and they are energized and excited about the poems we read (from Milosz;s The Book of Luminous Poetry) ... And some of them, even at 80 go trouncing off on world travels. They are a blessing in my life...these adventurers!
I CAN'T be 71! It's impossible! I don't know the me the mirror shows me. Who is that woman? My brain is about 30 (except that it doesn't work quite as dependably as it did so I can't always trust it). My emotions are too often adolescent. Like yesterday, for instance, when the landlord had the windows in the senior apartment I live in changed... smaller windows now, less light...and the 12 over 12 panes have been replaced by plain glass surrounded by white plastic. You never saw uglier windows. And how I raged at the poor workmen..."I HATE them " I roared, "they are UGLY, UGLY, UGLY!' and I drew the drapes so I wouldn't have to look at them and turned on all the lights in the place and left them on all day to "get even." Adolescent, for sure!
So maybe part of us never grows up or gets old...or god forbid, dies. My grandmother lived to 91 and her two daughters lived to their late 80's...I hang my hopes on that, ignoring the fact that my mother died at 38 and my father in his early 40's (though by his own hand, so that doesn't count). And my grandfathers died in their early 60's. Maybe if I keep the rage part going, I can just bluster my way through for 20 more years! I'm sure not ready to be done with this amazing world yet!
|
|
|
Post by christina61 on Nov 13, 2008 16:35:37 GMT 2
In Polish there is a wish for everyone on his or her birthday. Sto Lat we say, which means, "May you live a hundred years!"
P.S. I was diagnosed with fibro at 50 some and on top of spinal stenosis!!!! I can commiserate about the sedentary necessities. Now I find that my enlarging girth will most likely be my early demise.
|
|
|
Post by kbecker on Nov 14, 2008 15:34:58 GMT 2
I, too, can relate to the fibro! When I look back on journals I kept twenty years ago I can still see "me," even tho much has changed outwardly. I used to make a discipline of going thru journals and marking the things that I still needed to work on, whether personally or artistically. A way of self-examination. For me, I got so busy that when I had/have time, I want to get straight to the draft of the poem or story or essay or review I'm writing, so I have not taken the time to keep more than notes for work. But the things I notice are themselves somewhat journal-like in that what impresses me does so in part because of where I am in my personal journey... Kim
|
|
|
Post by christina61 on Nov 14, 2008 16:59:11 GMT 2
Ariel writes of her response to a constriction of light and her words resonated with me for a while. I, too, love the light - and the dark but that's another story - and would find a loss of light beyond my ability to control difficult to accept not this too!
We live in an old house and I look out windows often - many of which are the original old watery type of glass and I love how the light/world looks through these panes - and so I wrote in my journal this morning determined to address the light in some manner and what follows - a la Kim's work process and how she has used journaling particularly in the past - is swift second draft. with a third comb-through before posting here.
November Light (with apologies to May Sarton)
no snowy expanse no windswept heath or mountain vista in this view
but cramped and thwarted by an urban landscape what light will do
in the old house beneath the bare oak ailanthus and silk tree, too
A fractured light once summer-dappled when the leaves were new
|
|