Although Keene has lost all but the most tenacious piles of snow during our recent (and recently ended) stint of spring-like temperatures, there was still snow on the ground in nearby Nelson, NH this past Saturday. As I headed toward Nelson in search of May Sarton’s grave, I worried more about frost heaves than I did about snow, as Nelson’s paved roads were bone-dry but bumpy from Nature’s latest round of freeze and thaw.
I’ve long known that May Sarton had lived in Nelson…but I never connected that her grave might be there. After having written Plant Dreaming Deep and Journal of a Solitude in Nelson, Sarton moved to York, Maine, where she wrote The House By the Sea. All three of these prose works figured in my PhD comprehensive exam on 20th century British and American women writers and nature, an exam I’d designed, prepared for, and taken right before moving to New Hampshire in 1999. Although Sarton is best known as a poet, it is her prose journals that I most admire; as a long-time journal-keeper and transplanted New Englander, I love the way Sarton made the mundane details of her daily life shine through the prism of her honest telling.
When my ex-husband and I moved to Hillsborough, NH the summer of 1999, I was initially shocked to discover Nelson was an easy drive away. After having read Journal of a Solitude several times, I automatically assumed that Sarton lived very far away in New Hampshire: somewhere in the Middle of Nowhere wilds of the North Country, or a similarly secluded spot. That Sarton had written her Journal in a town that wasn’t that much smaller than Hillsborough–a small village, granted, but a village nevertheless–called into question my assumption that “real” nature writers had to hole themselves away far from any sign of humanity…a silly assumption indeed given the amount of time Sarton in her Journal mentions neighbors and visitors and the like.
Like any assumption, my surprise at learning that Sarton had penned two beloved works right down the road from where I was toiling on a stuck dissertation says more about my mindset than it does about hers. When my ex-husband and I landed in New Hampshire, we owned one car and knew no one. On days when I didn’t drive Chris to catch a bus to his job south of Boston, he took the car, leaving me home alone with only a dog and dissertation to entertain me.
Given the loneliness of those times, it’s no surprise that I found repeated solace in Sarton’s Journal of a Solitude, insisting as it does that loneliness is an occasional part of an artist’s path, a blade that hones one’s creative edge. As I’ve written before, living in Hillsborough and now Keene, I felt a connection with the phenomena Sarton saw and recorded and the ones in my own habits and heart:
- As I wrote that last paragraph, the sun came out briefly, illuminating this page and the entire room as if a god had stepped onstage and then fled. And now it�s back, this light, but it�s slowly fading: a flirtatious deity. This morning, as I read from May Sarton�s Journal of a Solitude, a similar light danced and teased, tripping across the page as I read of New Hampshire days some thirty years ago. I was struck at how Sarton describes the highs and lows that writers face: the depression and loneliness punctuated with moments of unmitigated joy. When I read Sarton, I realize the beauty that comes from simply seeing: it�s not about Sarton, but what she�s seen. That�s what interests me, or any of her readers, even if what she sees is light falling on a daffodil that�s been dead for thirty years. That daffodil is long dead, but the light that fell on it is not.
As much as I insist my admiration for May Sarton is “not about Sarton, but what she’s seen,” as I drove up the melt-slicked, mud-rutted dirt road to Nelson Cemetery this weekend, I realized I’d been only partially honest with myself. Although I knew I wouldn’t meet May’s ghost at the site where her ashes are buried, I suspected the experience of visiting her grave would tap into some psychological ghosts of my own. Although my favorite of Sarton’s books is Journal of a Solitude, the book that in a sense changed my life was The House By the Sea, describing as it did during a particularly lonely period in my marriage exactly what it felt like to be alone and coupled:
- �Loneliness” for me is associated with love relationships. We are lonely when there is not perfect communion. In solitude one can achieve a good relationship with oneself. It struck me forcibly that I could never speak of “bone loneliness” now, though I have certainly experienced it when I was in love.
“Bone loneliness” is a term Sarton borrows from a penpal who used it to describe the emotion she felt in an otherwise happy live-in relationship, an emotion Sarton found echoed in letters she received from other women, all of them married or in long-term relationships. When I first read The House by the Sea years ago in a rented house in Randolph, MA, the phrase “bone loneliness” nearly knocked me off my feet, the phenomenon rang so close to my heart’s home.
As I walked through the stone gate at Nelson Cemetery and began scanning for a phoenix-shaped grave marker, memories of my own bone loneliness came flooding to the fore. Mine wasn’t a miserable marriage, nor was it marked with abuse or betrayal, “only” the pervasive loneliness of two mismatched souls trying to keep up the appearance of intimacy. In the years after reading The House By the Sea, though, I’d clung to that notion of “bone loneliness” and how it differed from solitude: being alone wouldn’t kill me, I came to believe, but bone loneliness just might.
When I spotted May Sarton’s grave in the shallow snow, I was struck by how it stands alone.
Whereas Henry David Thoreau rests among friends and family on Author’s Ridge in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord, MA and Willa Cather spends eternity next to her companion Edith Lewis in the Old Burying Ground in Jaffrey, NH, Sarton’s ashes are buried alongside no one. Sarton’s resting place is marked with the stone phoenix she so enjoyed in her Maine garden, its base covered with stones and mementos from admirers; the flat marker bearing her name, the title “Poet,” and the dates of her birth and death were covered, still, by the weekend’s remaining snow.
May Sarton was fiercely protective of her solitude while she was alive: although she had a rich social life with friends, neighbors, and correspondents, she cherished her home in Nelson as a place to seek refuge from the stimulus of interpersonal encounters. If buried ashes could be said to “face” a given direction, Sarton’s mortal remains look toward a row of gray and crooked gravestones–her eternal neighbors–while no one lies to either side of her. The arrangement is perhaps a fitting visual metaphor for how Sarton preferred to live her life, choosing to eshew an alongside-partner while staying within sight–but not exactly within reach–of her Nelson neighbors.
Just as I found hope all those years ago in May Sarton’s assertion that life alone doesn’t have to be lonely, on Saturday I found hope in the stone phoenix that marks her grave.
In my own experience, there is life after loneliness, the fire of solitude burning away the chaff of heartache. Although there have been times since my divorce when I’ve been poignantly aware that I live alone, I’ve not once felt that sense of “bone loneliness”–an ache that sears to the root of you. There is something about solitude that feels redemptive, and there’s something about being lonely in relationship that is devastating. Remembering all the times I turned away from my husband in bed, wishing I could fall asleep and never again awake to the ache that belied his physical presence, I know that any aloneness I might feel now doesn’t match the searing disconnect I felt then.
Many years ago, May Sarton gave me hope that a woman could live, thrive, and be creative on her own; this weekend, May’s final resting place gave me a deeper sense of closure on the life chapter my own divorce ended. When I returned to my car after photographing Sarton’s grave, I sat in the driver’s seat and wept, the sight of stone reminding me of the bone loneliness of years’ past. Athletes speak of muscle memory: the body’s tenacious hold on oft-repeated motion, a memory which guides a limb through moves the conscious mind has forgotten. I think the soul carries a similiar bone memory, the ache of past heartbreak never entirely dissipating, its lesson echoing through the caverns of recollection.
In the snow of February, May Sarton lies alone, but surely she’s not lonely, for her memory is wrought in the blood and bones of all those readers, correspondents, and friends whose lives were touched by hers: a spot of May that lives even in winter, eternal.
Feb 7, 2006 at 9:50 pm
Thank you for the pictures and your personal thoughts. I just purchased a copy of The House by the Sea at an estate sale. This is my first exposure to Mary Sarton’s work. I am on my own journey UP the path of “widowhood.” I found your comments appropriate for me as well. As I read this book, I will ponder on your thoughts and refer to you entry to “connect” with Mary Sarton.
Thank you.
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Feb 7, 2006 at 9:59 pm
Lorianne, Thank you so much for this beautiful piece of writing. Reading it is like watching a sun rise slowly. A hidden order, glorious color. You gave me a lot to think about.
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Feb 7, 2006 at 10:05 pm
Lorianne, I think you mentioned once that the house Sarton stayed in (owned?) while writing Journal of a Solitude was nearby and you expressed surprise that there was not at least a marker for it…I always secretly hoped you’d get and post photos of the house! These are even better. I enjoyed them.
And as always, when you write about your marriage crumbling and the feelings involved, your writing touches me. Thank you.
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Feb 8, 2006 at 2:22 am
Lorianne,
What a beautiful post, and the pictures are wonderful. I am glad the trip was so meaningful to you. Thanks for sharing the pieces of your past and how they intersect with your present. I hope to read more about your life events and feelings in future posts.
May’s *Journal of a Solitude* was probably her most popular journal, but I also found the most personal meaning in *House by the Sea*. I was recovering from a relationship’s terrible ending at the time and stumbled upon it in a bookstore, having no idea who May was. Shortly after reading it, I wrote her a letter, and we corresponded thereafter for 10 years.
Her writing always left me feeling peaceful and content. Inevitably when I was feeling sad or was in some type of personal conflict I would find myself unconsciously choosing a Sarton journal or book of poetry to read. I now have an extensive personal library of her work including her very first published book of poetry when she was quite young. I usually have one Sarton book near my nightstand along with a stack of other books I am currently reading.
I look forward to seeing some shots of the church and cemetery in the spring when you return after the snow melts. I remember when she and a friend planted hundreds of daffodils at Wild Knoll – it would be wonderful if a few spring up near her gravesite. 🙂
The phoenix sculpture was done by Barbara Barton, the partner of an artist from Parsonfield, Maine, named Anne Woodson, a friend of May’s. It stood in her Maine garden for many years before it was moved to her gravesite as a marker.
🙂 Sky
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Feb 8, 2006 at 7:05 am
Wow. Your writing is beautiful, and achingly poignant. I like it when a post makes me want to learn more. Yours did just that. About May Sarton I mean. The bone lonliness, well, I’ve experienced that from time to time;there’s no need to learn any more about that.
What a wonderful post Lorianne.
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Feb 8, 2006 at 8:23 am
That was absolutely gorgeous.
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Feb 8, 2006 at 11:04 am
Beautiful post and beautiful photographs. Sarton’s journals and poetry always touch me; I use JOURNAL OF A SOLITUDE in one of my workshops, and, in storage, I have a complete collection of all her published journals. While as a person, she was too demanding and push-me-pull-you for me, as a writer, I find her work inspirational. I often keep one of her journals by my desk or my chair or my bed; when I am tired, she fuels me.
I hadn’t realized that Nelson was close to Keene — good to know.
I often drive through York on my way to my grandmother’s house, and have eaten often at one of her favorite restaurants there, Bosun’s Landing (I think I spelled that wrong).
THE HOUSE BY THE SEA is beautiful. And I love her descriptions of flowers and music, and how it fuels her writing.
By the way, in yesterday’s entry of INK IN MY COFFEE, I thank you for the many new connections you’ve inspired, and mention your blog. I hope that’s okay (in the first entry of the day, not the second).
Best wishes, and, again, thanks so much for sharing so much.
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Feb 8, 2006 at 12:04 pm
Thanks Lorianne,
I frequently experience “bone loneliness” when I am in a group and there is no communication taking place. That group could be me and another person or it could be a group of fifty.
You mentioned Sarton several weeks ago. I have read most of the novel “Kinds of Love”.
I also have read the poetry book “As Does New Hampshire”. A very beautiful book of poems that I highly recommend.
I am looking forward to reading the Journal of Solitude.
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Feb 8, 2006 at 12:31 pm
Wow, what a moving and wonderfully rendered meditation on loneliness and aloneness. This is a keeper.
I’ve not read Sarton’s journals, only some of her poetry. I’m not sure given my current manic social mode her journals are the thing to read – or maybe they’d offer a bit of a calmative. By the way, I loved your writing about the light coming out “as if a god had stepped onstage and then fled” – the fading light of the “flirtacious deity.”
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Feb 8, 2006 at 12:34 pm
Thank you for this glorious post. I am deeply moved and fighting tears. Your writing is always wonderful, but this may be the best I’ve seen.
Thank you.
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Feb 8, 2006 at 1:41 pm
A very moving and graceful contemplation!
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Feb 9, 2006 at 4:46 am
Oh, Lori…this is beautiful, and awful, and true.
People ask me how I can possibly give up “companionship,” sexual intimacy, and family to become a nun, and I always describe to them the nights I spent awake in my Chicago apartment next to my lover, feeling exactly as you describe and what Sarton calls “bone loneliness.” I tell people that if I can feel that awful next the one I love, then how can be apart from that possibly be “worse?”
It was during that time that I wrote almost nothing, less than at any other time in my life. Creativity is connection, but not necessarily in the conventional way, through ideas of intimacy and relationship. It’s not just writing that’s a creative act, but living, and when “bone loneliness” has you, you don’t feel quite alive, caught in the sear, as it were, but unable to function with it. Can’t love, can’t write, can’t live…
I’m so glad that you’re writing and living so well. A woman on her own, but not alone. Thank you.
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Feb 9, 2006 at 9:23 pm
This is spectacular. Speaks to me in my own struggle with my contentment in being alone. There is so much lore that tries to paint us as lacking and less than successful for living this way – but I believe this: there are some great and deep connections and partnerships and there are many, many more bone-lonely partnerships that persist out of fear. Living ‘alone,’ we have connection in so many places (not just in graveyards but in living friendships, the written word, music, art), and that is the sweet prize for living honestly.
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Feb 10, 2006 at 1:11 pm
In my recent experiments with Bloglines I somehow managed to miss this post until I saw it referenced in a comment on a more recent one. I’m so glad I finally hooked up with it! Much to think about here, and while I’ve read some of May Sarton’s journals I don’t remember which ones or much detail (other than that I did like them) and after reading this I feel that I really need to revisit them.
Wonderful entry, Lorianne.
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Feb 11, 2006 at 12:28 pm
No one has ever pronounced my name quite like May did. Thank you for this beautiful piece of writing and for the photos of her gravesite. I doubt I will ever be in New Hampshire again so your photos mean a lot to me.
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Feb 12, 2006 at 10:43 pm
I keep all of Sarton’s journals on my bedroom dresser. House by the Sea is also my personal favorite. I fell into her books like a woman plunging into a paradise lost – and now found. Thank you for the photos and for your reflections. I hope you never suffer bone loneliness again.
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