CREATIVE CALM AND SOLITUDE: one woman, two visions

This is the beginning of the late May Sarton's lovely book, Journal of a Solitude. A poet, memoirist and friend of many leading lights of the literary world of her day, Sarton wrote the book to reflect on the rhythm of her creative life as honestly as she could, from the irritations and sadnesses to the moments of joy when a poem is coming to life.

Begin here. It is raining. I look out on the maple, where a few leaves have turned yellow, and listen to Punch, the parrot, talking to himself and to the rain ticking gently against the windows. 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.

From the moment I first read this description and others like it elsewhere in the book, I wanted the home, the writing studio, the life Sarton describes in the journal. The image of the quiet rain and solitude speak so strongly to me, as do many of the other images and events in this quiet, lyrical book. I still feel a little pang of longing as I sit here writing about it in my own home office, a lovely and colorful space currently piled with a myriad of projects and papers and reminders of people to call, write, email, or see.

I said Sarton attempted to write the book honestly, but as always happens in memoir or autobiography there are omissions both intentional and unconscious. Biographies of the writer reveal a turbulent life filled with turbulent and dramatic relationships. In fact, the Library Journal review of Margot Peters' biography of Sarton comments, "Peters chronicles a life full of turbulence, pain, loneliness, neediness, and passion...and offers a well-written, compelling literary biography to which readers will respond with emotions ranging from empathy, sympathy, awe, and admiration to disgust and disbelief that an artist who produced works that provided inspiration for so many lived with much misery and dissatisfaction."

Does the unattractive reality of Sarton's life as depicted by her biographers render her own more pleasing vision of it null and void? I don't think so. But it does remind us, maybe, that there is no perfect creative life or creative practice or creative studio. For each moment of peace there is a moment of tension, conflict, or uncertainty. For each day in which our space is decluttered and deeply nurturing, there is another day when it is messy and distracting.

And you know, I think that there is something that's inspiring, if paradoxically so, in that knowledge. It tells us that we all have the same access to creative concentration, and the same lack of access. Let's not wait for that perfect afternoon full of solitude and raindrops before we start to create, that perfectly decluttered house with the roses on the mantel and the hours of time alone before we quiet our minds, focus, and reflect. Let's all accept the variable rhythm of human life, its swings from resonant beauty to simple human messiness. Most of all, let's learn to find our creativity and concentration wherever we are.