She, a “foreigner in the land of old age,” and I, a Tourist
Written: May 18 '01 (Updated May 18 '01)
Product Rating:
Pros: Sarton achieves power and intimacy, beauty and pain in these poems.
Cons: This was Sarton's final volume of poetry before her death in 1995.
The Bottom Line: In Coming Into Eighty, May Sarton reflects on the depth of experience into which she has grown in her life, writing poignantly, intimately, and powerfully.
prettyinpink's Full Review: May Sarton - Coming into Eighty: New Poems
I am, by normal expectancies, slightly more than half-way through my life. I carry forty-seven years of losses in my soul, each new one cutting deeper than the last. Every new good-bye is more deeply sorrowful than the one before, each one a tiny death.
I am but a few days away from completing a year-long fellowship. My heart aches with anticipatory grief. My heart leaps with the excitement of new beginnings to follow. What is visible is poise and balance; what cannot be seen is the devastating psychic upheaval I am living. This is the existential agony of life, the solitary task of becoming oneself.
I sit at the poetic feet of May Sarton, reading her slim volume Coming Into Eighty, her final collection of poetry before her death. In her preface she writes, “Here I am, writing poems in my seventy-ninth and eightieth years, and the reason is partly because I am a foreigner in the land of old age and have tried to learn its language.” (p. 11) Her words are my Michelin guide, an impressionistic map of the terrain of age.
“These poems are minimal because my life is reduced to essences.” (p. 12)
As I write this, I am surrounded by piles of books I am selling, piles of paper to scan to disk before shredding. I have lists of items to hawk on eBay. I feel a monumental drive to reduce my life to the essential, to clear the clutter and sweep away the insubstantial stuff of life. To find solace in a tiny verse, wisdom in few words, is a glory indeed. Do I need more than essence?
“Eighty years/Of learning what to be/And how to become it.” (p. 15)
I am still learning to be me, that painful, exciting process of looking backwards, and inwards, and forward. “One sail torn, the rudder/Sometimes wobbly./We are hardly a glorious sight.” (p. 15) Like Sarton, I have sometimes sailed into tempestuous seas and torn my sails. Still they fly and help me through the winds of change. Not knowing what I shall next become, I wobble, ungloriously steering my course, guarding myself against further battering, but hell-bent to keep sailing.
“Small joys keep life alive.” (p. 25)
This morning as I drank my morning coffee, I saw a pair of cardinals dash by, two vivid red avian forms darting into a tree. I gasped, and pulled my hand to my chest, breathless with the rich joy of their beauty. I see cardinals rarely, and when they visit me, it is a magical gift. This brief vision was reason enough to live today.
“I used to think/Pain was the great teacher/But after two years/Of trying to learn/Its lessons/I am hoping my teacher/Will go away/She bores me almost to death,/She is so repetitive.” (p. 31)
Loves lost are to the soul like the rings of a tree: you can tell one’s age by counting them. My patients grieve my going. Almost hourly I receive some telephone message, the content only a ruse, their phone call just a way to forestall the inevitable loss and pain. This letting go is hard for me, too, and I tell them so. Perhaps there is no greater intimacy than shared pain.
“There is a thin glass/Between me and everything I see./The glass is pain./How to slide it away,/Unblur my vision?” (p. 32)
I use my sadness to separate me from others. I retreat to my bungalow and make my world smaller – less to see, less to figure out. People relentlessly ask my what I shall do after my fellowship. I do not know, nor do I want to know now. My pain and my fatigue blur my vision. For now I insulate myself while I look for a little psychic Windex.
“You will comfort with a word/Others who are lost like you,/You will celebrate a bird,/Sing the song of falling snow/Become balm for every hurt,/Woman with an open heart.” (p. 51)
It is precisely from these tender places in my heart that I give comfort to others. Sometimes their simply being with me in silence is a consolation. The low, steady sound of my voice gives them security. I, woman with an open heart, am, more by my being than by my words, balm for others’ hurts. I do celebrate the bird and sing a song of falling rain (no snow in Houston), but I long also for the open heart to comfort me.
“These days/Everything is an effort./Getting dressed/Is an adventure.” (p. 54)
Sensuality has replaced performance, and the pleasure is so much greater. No longer do I even know if today is a “bad hair day.” I love the feel of my hair across my cheek, and that alone makes it a good hair day. The beautiful perfect crema atop my espresso gives me greater joy than the energy from its caffeine. The more slowly I move, the more I experience. The tastes and smells and touches are overwhelming. I am completely baffled by people who do not experience life this way, who seem voluntarily to walk away from such richness. It’s true it can be intoxicating, but full-body sensuality is also a great adventure.
“I am still whole and merry/And when all’s said and done/Rejoice in my strange story/Ardent and alone.” (p. 66)
Despite my obvious pain, there is also a great inner glee. I have grand daydreams that excite me, keeping me awake at night like a small child anticipating Christmas. Even the letting go, with all its grief, creates an exhilarating freedom. My griefs are deeper than ever before, but so are my joys.
“How can I have lived so long/Such a complexity of work, people, events/I ask myself in dismay.” (p. 69)
If my life has been this complex to age forty-seven, what greater complexities await me as I grow towards eighty? As I read the powerful and intimate words of Sarton, I cannot say I understand and appreciate her. I only have an understanding and an appreciation. They fill me with a sense of awe and reverence for the mystery of growing. These words are a new friend, the author now deceased. They speak into my heart and help me celebrate my life.
* * * * *
These reflections were inspired by May Sarton’s book Coming Into Eighty, published in paperback in 1994 by W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. (ISBN 0-393-03689-8)
Ms. Sarton was born in 1912 in Belgium and her family moved to the United States when she was four. She died in 1995, having graced the world with 53 books, including 19 novels, 17 poetry collections, 15 non-fiction works, and 2 children’s books. Coming Into Eighty was awarded the Levinson Prize from Poetry magazine in 1993.
This piece is submitted as a part of the Aging Write-Off, graciously hosted May 19, 2001 by ed_grover, 99 years after Ms. Sarton’s birth. Originally planned to celebrate Older Americans Month during May, it was opened up to everyone, anywhere, because of America's reputation as a melting pot. We are celebrating the member diversity found on the Epinions.com site.
Please join the following participants from Canada, the UK and the USA who are celebrating Aging with everything from humor to more serious subjects. Read on!
Angelabar has designed a special Web page for this write-off that will make accessing the participants much easier. It is located at: http://www.pronetisp.net/~anjuliz/older_american.html
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