I met May Sarton through her last book, a diary from her 82nd year. I discovered that she let behind about 10 other diaries, and the book from which i heard most often of her, Journal of a Solitude.
I love diaries, i feel so lucky to be able to get into someone else’s life, life of another time, someone of another age. I felt so close, like being a watching companion over her life, and her being a companion to me for the days i was reading the diary.
As she writes,
“We are all getting older, travel less, and in some ways these journals are like long letters, telling much of what i have done and thought in a whole year”
so i felt compeled to get to know more about how it feels to be May Sarton, at 82, with the solitude, the images and memories fading behind, the good moments, the fighting against depression and frustration, the constant struggle to keep things up, and the despair about the idea of leaving things unfinished…
“… Now i know that this business of being May Sarton will never be sorted out…”
I wish, or hope she knew, that as a woman of another time, i am deeply grateful for her sharing of her life, with such humility and sensibility.