real life

I am here alone for the first time in weeks, to take up my “real” life again at last. That is what is strange–that friends, even passionate love, are not my real life unless there is time alone in which to explore and to discover what is happening or has happened. Without the interruptions, nourishing and maddening, this life would become arid. Yet I taste it fully only when I am alone here and “the house and I resume old conversations.” – May Sarton, Journal of a Solitude

God, I love May Sarton. Beyond all else, I find her writing to be a tremendous comfort. When I read Mrs. Stevens Hears the Mermaids Singing I almost wore out my pen from all the underlining.

Last night I began feeling the beginnings of a head cold and so spent all of today inside my house, reading and drinking pots of tea, visiting with my mom who brought me soup and looking at old pictures. Sean is working all weekend so the day has been silent, excluding my talk with mom.

I had a moment while looking through some photo albums that made me think of the above passage from Journal of a Solitude. I have this one book in which I place my “best” photographs. I say they’re my best but that’s not really what I mean–they’re the ones that make my heart swell, the ones that trigger some sleeping memory or feeling. Many of them are out of focus or too dark or harshly contrasted so they aren’t “best” in terms of skill. Just “best” meaning that I would grab this collection if the house were on fire.

They are a snowy morning in Geneseo before class, a patch of smushed grass at Letchworth State Park where we had laid our blanket, Marianne making notes before a poetry reading, Alex playing violin, Rachel with wet hair before Mar’s wedding, the orange dirt in Utah as my father and I drove through it, my bedroom Junior year of college. Leroy’s blue truck, and many portraits of many loves.

All of them, loaded.

After I finished browsing all those conversations and places and people, I felt kind of stunned and stuffed. I also felt entirely and indisputably blessed. Only in the loneliness of this day at home was I able to fully consider the depth of what is happening and has happened. And I turned to that passage from Sarton, the black underlining giving it away before I could be sure of the words, and took up my real life again, saying “Yes, yes,” to absolutely no one.