The House by the Sea (24 page)

I always think of Anne, tall and slender, playing tennis at the Longfellow house and dancing folk dances there each May Day, and it is
invraisemblable
to witness now the awkwardness, the difficulty with which she walks, the stooped shoulders. But she doesn't see this change, for she lives in the eternal NOW of very old age. Her blue eyes seem more transparent than ever, and fill just as they used to with a kind of radiance whenever she is moved by anything deeply. It is not tears, but an added light and that is what has always been so extraordinary about her. None of her sisters had those eyes. I have never seen them in anyone else.

Spring is always poignant because nothing stays. It must be caught and appreciated on the wing, for soon it will be gone. And with so many many of my friends now in their eighties it is more poignant than usual for me this year.

Thursday, May 13th

S
UCH A MARVELOUSLY
sharp-edged day … the sea sparkles. There is no wind, and for the first time this spring I have opened wide the door into the porch. When I do that the ocean comes right into the house.

I opened to this in Jung this morning: “From the middle of life onward, only he remains vitally alive who is ready to
die with life
.” I wonder if, for me, that means admitting that poetry came from a different segment and is no longer possible. Yet sometimes I feel I am on the brink, that a nearly imperceptible and quite unconscious shift is taking place that will open that door again. It is certainly true that a part of me that was too clenched toward achievement is opening like a clenched hand. This month I am “being” rather than “doing”—“doing” on the level of work, writing, at least. There is almost too much play to be dealt with, if by “play” I mean the garden. But what a lovely day! I am brimful of joy.

Sunday, May 16th

A
NOTHER OF THESE
silken days … I am in an ecstasy of birds and their plummeting flight past the terrace. It is very thrilling when a bird closes its wings and
shoots
along like a torpedo through the air. The elusive oriole is everywhere now, in and out of maple flowers and apple blossom. But I rarely catch sight of him. I miss the white-throated sparrow … has he not returned? The mourning doves settle under the bird feeder, half a dozen at a time, and when disturbed make a lovely rustling whirr as they fly off. But it is now no single bird but the sense of congregations everywhere in the air and in the trees that makes the thrill. Out in the field the killdeer give their sharp peep, and the tree swallows go scooting around in the evening. The air they inhabit with such grace is intoxicating in itself, cool and gentle. What days!

Now the lilacs are coming out and the fruit trees almost over; there are still patches of glowing white and yellow narcissus in the field, but they are almost gone. It all comes and goes so fast, like a dream.

Yesterday the four children from the Gates school in Acton and two of their teachers came for a picnic. They are eight now, and have written me and sent delightful presents since they were six and read
Punch
, so we are old friends. It all turned out beautifully. They rushed down to the rocky beach, took off their sneakers and were soon immersed in all that ocean maze of “finds”—smooth rocks, banded or not, mussel shells, living snails (great excitement at that). Tamas doesn't see many people only a little taller than he and I was afraid he might feel nervous, but within a few minutes he was quite himself and looking for a hand or bare foot to lick. Bramble made a brief appearance when we did the walk through the woods, came toward me, saw what a crowd stood behind me, and fled. We didn't see her again!

The children noticed everything; Chris even spotted a lady's slipper (still green) I had not seen. They loved the violets—carpets of them now in the open field. Maura made a turtle out of two stones and two little pieces of driftwood (for paws), and it all ended with some Polaroid pictures of us with Tamas. Such a good day!

I feel the school must be quite exceptional, as these children were so free and yet so well-behaved, so full of things they wanted to do, alone and together, so independent yet responsive.

While I was waiting for them to come I opened and then became immersed in a new book,
The Very Rich Hours of Adrienne Monnier
. It seems incredible that in that whole winter I spent in Paris, when I walked the Rue de L'Odéon a thousand times, I never entered either her bookshop “La Maison des Amis des Livres” or Sylvia Beach's “Shakespeare and Co.” across the street from it. I would have felt at home in both, and those two lovers of literature would have taught me a great many things I needed to know then, and even now am ignorant of. This book has as its frontispiece Adrienne Monnier's description of The Very Rich Hours of the Duc de Berry. I read it, thinking how much this moment in York resembles one of them:

“Before The Very Rich Hours of the Duc de Berry I seemed to perceive as through a magic emerald the very nature of France: our land and its people dressed in bold colors; gestures of work as pure as those of the Mass; women in flowerlike dresses; fanfares of leisure; living water, branches; desires and loves; beautiful castles in the distance; a comforting sky; our animals near us; our days colored with hope and finely woven.

“It is not without reason that the stroke of strong admiration brings tears to the eyes. The sight or sound of perfect things causes a certain suffering. In the case of these miniatures, is it not as if one were burned by a fine rain of fire? Such works are like the focus of a lens that gathers the light of all space into one intense point. With a passionate concentration they draw from the world of forms a kind of jewel, a fairy-thing.”

Every word of this reverberates for me. I can ponder it phrase by phrase—the contrast, for instance, between “desires and loves.”

Wednesday, May 19th

A
WILD RAIN
and windstorm is upon us and I suffer to see the tall orange tulips all bent over, nearly to the ground. It's sad because for once I have this whole day free and had planned to get in at least six rows of seeds. The rain is so fierce I am even afraid it may drown the infinitesimal poppy seeds I sowed three days ago.

Yesterday I saw a cardinal trying to get to the feeder among all the greedy blackbirds, grackles, and cowbirds that now dominate and keep all the small birds away, “junk birds,” a friend of mine calls them. I planted two more roses (a birthday present from Raymond), and five big dahlias, and fed the hyacinths. There is so much going on now, so much to think about as well as do, I am breathless.

I had a marvelous drive on the way back from getting lettuce and things for the Hepps, who came here for a late dinner the day before yesterday, a marvelous drive because all the way from Kittery I was among towering chestnut trees in flower. Is there anything more beautiful? Yes, the catalpas that come a little later. There is one I make a special trip each June to see on the road to South Berwick. But now it is a festival of chestnuts, stiff and ceremonial, holding up their white spires. The lilacs too are in full bloom … there are so many wonders around, I am cross to have a whole day spoiled. Rain and more rain.

Tuesday, May 25th

T
HE COLD UNSETTLED WEATHER
continues to depress; 40° every night. I must admit it has kept the tulips in flower far longer than usual. There are even a few late ones just coming into bloom.

It has been a very full and nourishing weekend with Catherine Becker here. Nothing is better for me than a painter in the house … she made two charming watercolors while I was out getting my honorary doctorate from the University of New Hampshire on Sunday. I had such a good feeling, leaving a sensitive person to explore the atmosphere here alone, and also it was lovely to come back for once to find a friend to listen to the happenings of my day. We talked at length all through the time she was here about the problems of the woman artist, and as counterpoint I have been reading Karen Elias-Button's PhD thesis, “Medusa'a Daughters, A Study of Women's Consciousness in Myth and Poetry.”

In Catherine I see a very strong woman, a woman married to an artist, bringing up two little girls (now fourteen and a half and eleven). I have the sense that she may be finding the way to gather all this into a whole human being of great power and tenderness as an artist and a woman. So in a way she is the pioneer, and like all pioneers she is finding it a hard and troubling path. Her fantasies (and they appear in her work) are all of women, women in passionate relation to each other. So for her, as for me, woman is the Muse, but she is not playing the fantasy out—and more and more I have come to believe that this is the right way. The androgynous side of C. goes into the work, is translated. For me too, I realize more and more that the best muses were the unattainable ones, the ones hence that became part of a private mythology. But can this be sustained in C.? At some point the Muse-woman will become a reality and have to be dealt with on the level of reality. And then what? At present the fantasy is being played out against and with the help of what appears to be (from what I heard from and felt in C.) a wise woman psychiatrist whom she sees once or twice a week.

C.'s husband is doing well himself as an artist, a slow thoughtful producer of one major work a year. He and she both teach, she as a poorly paid instructor, he as a full professor. So far this has worked just because she is, in a way, a student. But he said once, “Don't get too good or I'd mind.” She is his rock and he is very dependent. The fantasies of woman as lover come, I feel certain, from C.'s need for something that nourishes her. She is the mother, as it were, of three people now. Now and then they have a cleaning woman come in, and David likes to cook, so they take turns; but otherwise the household work rests on C. She told me that one day when the cleaning woman was there, C. was in her room painting and she suddenly thought, “This is what it is like for David all the time.” It seemed an extraordinary luxury to be able to work at her painting while someone else cleaned.

Friday, May 28th

I
N THIS MONTH
of festivities, with guests nearly every day and the garden itself a festival, I have come to see that my hunch that the time has come for me to have many loves and no love, to rejoice in this diffused focus instead of longing for the intense but narrowing vision of passionate commitment to one person … that hunch was foretelling of a new kind of happiness. It is here, I welcome it, and feel very rich and blest.

Wednesday, June 2nd

L
AST WEEKEND
I was at Colby College to get an honorary doctorate, and spent the night in China with Ed Kenney and Susie and their two little children, Jamie and Anne, five and two, respectively. Anne at two is already an enchantress, using every feminine wile to get what she wants; Jamie at five interested in things rather than people. He was delighted by the magnetic frogs I had brought, and explained to me the difference between toads and frogs. I enjoyed the whole evening tremendously, starting with a slow walk around the village by China Lake in the evening light, lilacs in full bloom and many charming small old houses one could dream of living in.

The Kenneys have bought an old house with the rare charm (for New England) of standing a hundred yards back from the road with a long lawn in front of it … this space and the great trees along each side give it an English look. Susie had cooked an epicurean meal, including salmon mousse in a fish shape, and afterward we talked until midnight. These two both teach, both write, and inevitably their life, with two small children to bring up, is one of constant struggle for the time and the energy it requires. I admire their courage, and once more feel the pang of what such lives
cost
, and whether it will be possible, especially for Susie, to do what she hopes to do as a writer. If there are “beautiful people,” they are not Jacqueline Kennedy but these two!

Friday, June 4th

D
AY BEFORE YESTERDAY
I began to feel quite queer after pushing hard to get a small weeding job done in the garden. Lee Blair was coming for dinner, but after my bath I felt absolutely “gone” and had to lie down. I got through dinner like a person in a dream, and only when I was in bed feeling feverish, discovered that I had 102° fever. So I guess sheer exhaustion has finally set in. I spent yesterday in bed, being ministered to by Lee. It was wonderful that she was here, to fetch the mail, bring me chicken soup, walk Tamas, and fill the house with her silent, beautiful presence. How I wish she could find the house she dreams of finding!

Sunday, June 6th

I
COMPLAINED TO LEE
that no one really looks at the garden. Her answer was accurate, “You do the garden for yourself, after all.” Yes, I do, but I also long to give it, and in this it is very much like poetry—that is, I would write poems whether anyone looked at them or not, but I
hope
someone will. This is not an easy garden because much of it is in shade. I used to be amused in Nelson because the neighbors always spoke of “your gardens,” meaning the many borders and plots of flowers. But there I did have a showy perennial border against the old barn wall, and here the perennial border is below the terrace and almost strangled now by euonymus and ivy above and below—“Ivy gripped the Steps,” as E. Bowen titled one of her stories. I have worked very hard here now for three years, with little to show for the hours and hours of blood and sweat, if not tears.

Do I spend too much time at this ephemeral task? In spring, summer, and autumn I work harder at it than at writing, and I expect that looks crazy, but what it does is balance all the anxieties and tensions and keep me sane. Sanity (plus flowers) does make sense.

Gardening is like poetry in that it is gratuitous, and also that it cannot be done on will alone. What will can do, and the only thing it can do, is
make time
in which to do it. Young poets, enraged because they don't get published right away, confuse what will can do and what it can't. It can't make a tree peony grow to twelve feet in a year or two, and it can't force the attention of editors and publishers. What it can do is create the space necessary for achievement, little by little. I thought of this when reading yesterday the review of Leslie Farber's new book by Anatole Broyard in the
Times
. A. B.'s first two paragraphs are as follows: