Love—love
A.
P.S.
Even geraniums, you know, will not bloom summer and winter. I try to make them, of course. I took them out of the summer window-boxes and put them in pots inside; they stayed alive but they would not blossom. Then I put them all back into their summer frames. It took them a long time to recover. They are just now beginning to bloom again. Don’t you and I expect blossoms from ourselves all year round? (A little Vigoro* is needed!)
Little House
Monday, July 18th, 1955 [DIARY]
I think I am going to have to give up on finding “people” in July. C. has gone off again. Evie called this a.m. & cannot come until perhaps Thursday or Friday. I have written the Kennans & wired Yvonne & I shall try to call her tonight & also Kitty. But I feel it is no use. I had better relax. It is my month to be alone. There is a terrible irony in it with Gift from the Sea heading the best-sellers week after week, preaching “solitude—solitude!” Here I am, having just what I say I want & it does not seem to be the answer! Then is the book all “hooey” as I sometimes feel? I don’t think so but the truth of it is not relevant to me at this moment in my life. (It is one of those half-truths Whitehead speaks of—the danger is when one takes them for whole-truths—“not true or false but relevant.”) It is true if one feels creative & it is true, actually, that I am better, probably, alone—not happier but more relaxed & out of that relaxation, I hope—creativity will come again.
“C’est de la terre en repos.”* If I would only accept it instead of fighting it, condemning & judging myself always for getting so little done. If I work all day at tidying up (like yesterday—washing—taking down dirty curtains—putting up new—filing & sorting at my desk), then I can relax at night & listen to music & then I feel better. Or swimming before supper—or that still hour before breakfast. I don’t have to justify myself doing these. Perhaps this is all I am supposed to do this summer—to get back to life—normal life. I am so greedy—I hate seeing the summer slip away with all this precious solitude wasted—nothing created out of it!
Evie was a help on the telephone this a.m.
“How are you?”
“Oh—I’m all right” (as Mother said it the last year of her life, rather grudgingly). “I’m not unhappy—I’m not happy—I’m just nothing—I feel nothing.” (“A day without salt.”)
Evie went on to say that she had felt for months after her mother died—after a period of sharp grief was over—simply numb. “The world was covered with dust & ashes.” Almost worse than grief.
I think it is, because grief is so illuminating & vivid & one feels alive—if suffering—through it. But this is a kind of anesthesia—one feels not that they are dead but that you are. One is unalive—unaware—unseeing & unfeeling. Surely this is death. Are we punishing ourselves for their death, I wonder? One feels very unloved after the death of someone who loves one. That is where the purely & concentratedly religious are so lucky—God loves them & they never doubt it. “I know—he cares—my Jee-sus cares. I know he cares for meeee.”
This doesn’t seem to be enough for me. I lack faith—or I want a more human love—or perhaps I do not love (forgive) myself enough.
[DIARY, UNDATED]
I plan to have the Wolffs for the weekend—& have sent off to him some pages of the novel typed. I also work each day at the Little House—until about two–three when the heat from the roof comes down & overcomes the cool air from the air conditioner. I work at Don—slowly—painfully.
I write postcards to the children—I swim—I listen to music—I plan easy meals for the weekend.
Ernestine is back—I see her for a moment (when K. is there). She looks entirely different—refreshed by her trip—alive & positive again—she leaves for the weekend to see her boys at camp.
[DIARY, UNDATED]
We have quite a successful weekend. Though the heat continues to be appalling. I have bought from the delicatessen two cooked ducks—to have cold—also lots of fruit salad—cold soups—cheeses & cold cuts—& brioches & croissants for breakfast—so as not to cook much. Even so—just the preparing of salads—trays—iced tea—whipping up the cold soups—& cleaning up—keep me on my feet all the time & I get very tired & angry at not being able to do it better. All other women do!
Fortunately C. arrived Sat. p.m. & he was fresh & full of life from abroad & he could talk to the Wolffs while I did the necessary practical work.
The week-end is somewhat weighed down by the heat—the humidity & all of our weariness at the end of such a summer. Helen* has not slept enough—with heat & a bad sun-burn. Kurt is tired from the summer in N.Y. I am weighed down by the sense of Monte’s wire—Ginny’s letter—the Aunts, etc.—all Mother’s dependents I cannot carry forever, & C.’s natural & proper resentment of them. Also just weariness with the unaccustomed work & not doing it perfectly & not being able to give myself up to conversation at the same time.
A few moments’ clear joy listening to Wanda Landowska’s† record.
Also a good talk Sunday a.m. with Kurt on the chapter of the book he has read.‡ He is very encouraging & stimulating & asks rapier-like questions that show me where the chinks—holes—are in my thinking & planning.
Monday I get to his suggestions & write again—slowly on Don—it comes a little. I am at least thinking about all the characters & they are getting rounder—but on paper it does not go fast.
Monday is cooler—we had storms all Sunday night & it is suddenly clear & bright—dazzling—like Maine—Ernestine comes to swim.
[AUGUST 1955, DIARY]
… I went in to see R.* Tues. p.m. and discussed the summer’s depressed period. Heat & humidity & let-down are much too simple excuses for him. Also all the rest of my analysis of it. (Don’t want to be ECM & to be tied to the past—new person coming to birth & all the “past-ness” hinders that, etc.) He says I still have no confidence in being a woman, mother, etc. The book—success & letters make me nauseated because it is competition with C. (i.e. I still want to be a man & yet it doesn’t bring happiness, etc.). All depressions are “anal.” I want to punish myself. Yes—I want to punish myself. I hate myself—but for what? Why? For being so lazy this summer? For having stopped my compulsive busyness of the spring? I don’t understand it really.
However—his animal good spirits & enthusiasm always hearten one somehow & make one feel there is more time—more space—more life—more opportunities.
Monday, August 22nd [1955] [DIARY]
Another hot weekend—broken by thunderstorms. C. and I meet Anne at La Guardia in the middle of the hottest day—Sunday. We barely get into the house when Sue and Bob Hatt arrive and we all go swimming and then sit on the terrace and drink iced tea. Then Sue and I go to the kitchen to get supper prepared: cut peaches, shuck corn, and talk. Sue tells me, quite accurately, that this is the wrong kind of meal for company because it keeps you in the kitchen up till the last minute. Casserole cooking is how she does it. She is quite right and I feel, as usual, inadequate in a household way.
She also talks to me about George,† who is getting married, and Nancy, his bride, and how she was influenced by my book (for the worse!), confirming my dim feelings of discomfort about the book. (Most women like it—for the wrong reasons, she fears; men don’t like it. It’s really a bad sign, its being so popular with women—shows how many unhappy women there are in America, discontented women who want a career. Nancy is an example.)
Much of this is true and I have said it myself. But this discussion rather helps me to say it out loud and clarifies what I feel. Actually it was written over a long period of time and growth, and has so many different layers of growth in it that people can find in it what they want—and they do! Among other things they respond to is my period of unhappiness or discontent with being a woman and my suggestions of ways, chiefly external, to counter this discontent. This discontent corresponds to the general malaise of the American woman with being a woman. I don’t know enough to und
erstand this profound malaise in this country or why it has become so wide, but I think it has to do with the fiercely competitive nature of our culture—certainly with the competitive struggle in America between the sexes.
Why does the American woman want to be a man? The English woman wants to be a man, too, but she just doesn’t have a chance. She doesn’t compete successfully. The American woman competes quite successfully—and unhappily! The Latin women are content to be women—why is this? Does it lie in some form of respect women get in Latin countries—as women? Is it due to our sexual repression, fear of sex, shame, etc.? Has it to do, as someone suggested, with the worship of the woman (the Mother Mary) in the Catholic countries—which we don’t have in the Protestant countries?
I wish I knew.
In any case, the discontent of the American woman is certainly one cause of the popularity of my book. But there are other causes, some spurious, some not. It has an “even as you and I” popularity (like Eleanor Roosevelt’s column), founded on the myth of CAL and me as a dream couple, idealized, worshipped. She has had trouble adjusting to housework, married life, etc.—“even as you and I.”
Then there is the “Back to Simplicity” movement, always and perennially popular. This is partly sound, partly escape. Then there is the frank explosion of the American myth of “The One and Only”—always and eternally at the same level of happiness. Everyone knows this is a myth, but saying so out loud helps and relieves people. (Love is intermittent, etc.) This is true and helpful and popular.
Then there is the hope for middle age and a new period of growth, and maybe even a new and more wonderful relationship! “The one and only” in a new package! Also part true and part false. Middle age as a new period of growth is true—the new and wiser and better relationship—the argonauta? I don’t know. I certainly believed it when I wrote it, but I don’t know. Anyway, both of these are very popular.
Then there are other smaller bits of insight or wisdom scattered through the book which are somewhat true and helpful: on the nature of love, relations with one’s children, on being insincere, on can’t-say-no-ism, etc. It is also written (and rewritten) in polished prose that is near the poetic and therefore charges the thoughts with an emotionalism it would not otherwise have. This also makes it all sound easier than it is! One can praise the book for this, but it might also be called a fault. It was a personal experience frozen into a beautiful form at a moment of half-growth. So that in the beautiful form, one finds embedded both the true and the false, the eternal and the ephemeral. The beautiful form changes it, so that people read and get fired by it—either to love it or hate it.
I told Sue I felt it was like The Wave of the Future.* She said she had thought so too but thought it would be tactless to say so(!)
Though I know all this I am quite deflated† by the evening—both my inadequacy in the kitchen & in the realm of the artist & thinker.
Dinner actually was quite good & everything done at the right moment—too much corn—too many peaches—a little too much seasoning in the peas—but on the whole a pretty good meal—for me—not for a Sue!
And the effort—I have expended so much effort—even for this simple meal—a good adequate meal. Finally, after cleaning up, we sit on the porch & sip white wine in seltzer & I get the conversation off of me & the book (What adverse criticism did I get from reviewers? Bob asks. I tell him about personal criticisms as C. launches on no bad reviews) & on C. & the movie‡—chiefly Sue & C. discussing. I get the men to discussing traits in unification & diversification in nature & man. C. is good & challenging on this & Bob is—somewhat—in his own field—& although rather conventional, open & interesting. I am pleased at this & to give Bob a chance to talk. Here I am successful & we have a wild thunderstorm—wind & rain which cools things off. Anne sits inside & plays recorder & writes letters. I feel vaguely uneasy about her.
When we go up to bed C. and I go in to say good night & she bursts into tears. She is tired—up all night on the plane & feels homesick for Camp & the nest of all those wonderful people! I put my arms around her & tell her I know how she feels & how I feel like that each time I come back from Europe—strange & out of place & wishing I were back there & feeling no one here understands. But she wouldn’t like to be there all the time—would she? No—she wouldn’t. She likes it here—she said it’s only the in between that is hard.
I tell her it always is, but that it is wonderful to feel & wonderful to care about people & wonderful to love them so much that you miss them. And you do find them again & more new people like them. The change is always difficult—she didn’t want to change from Camp but when she did, she found the change wonderful & new & she was able to adjust to it & fit into the new western world & make new friends. And this was a real achievement & she had shown the capacity for adjusting to change which would serve her all her life. She would do it again & again. She was more of a person for this new experience & she would find more new friends because of it.
And I told her how terribly happy I was to have her home. This is part of it—of course—she was dropped into a busy adult world in which her all-absorbing world no longer counted.
She went to bed comforted & I also—feeling more alive—more adequate—more functioning than I have all summer. For this one lives!
Friday, August 26th [1955] [DIARY]
Monday night, as C. and Ansy and I clean up after supper in the kitchen, Land walks in the door—tall, lean, serious, in a wide western hat, blue jeans slung low on his hips on a wide studded belt: very tan, very man-like. Ansy shrieked, “Land!” I threw my arms around him. C. was too surprised to speak.
That evening Land tells us one story after another—in a slow drawl, half-western, half-Canadian—of his incredible summer: chasing bulls, roping, tearing through brush on horses, drunken Indians, strange characters talking to him, getting razzed. “Gee, I was green. I am still.” I felt he had come to man’s estate this summer, learned a lot about life, about ranching, about men, and about himself. A new confidence.
The next day Land and I drive in for Scott, who arrives, also tan and in a western hat, without his baggage (left locked up in some station), but holding a cigar box in one arm in which there were four horned toads! We are a strange trio walking down Madison Avenue: Land and his drawl asking questions of Scott, Scott and his hat and cigar box, and I laughing at the two of them, racing along.
It is curious, this summer, as I said to Dana. I feel as if there were a kind of permanent high level of despair in me and I fall into it at the slightest provocation. It is like an uncovered well. All sorts of irrelevant details throw me back into it again. I suppose the well is the unabsorbed grief at the loss of Mother. At night I dream back to the old house in Englewood. I am in her old room and find an old nightgown on her bathroom door; I realize she is dead, but when I get into the bathroom alone and see the nightgown I sob and sob (which I never do awake). And there seem to be unexpected trap-doors every day which let one down into this level of despair.
[August 1955]
Dear Kurt,
I realized that of course I would go through with the picture for the Life article and that I would certainly not let you down, or Pantheon. I felt badly not to be able to reach you until the evening, for this kind of misunderstanding is best cleared up immediately. On the other hand my—our—extreme sensitivity about press pictures and publicity may need more of an explanation, at the risk of making this small incident sound too serious, than is possible except by letter.
Perhaps we all have areas that are oversensitive to pressure, in which one sees thunderheads and feels threatened where outsiders can see no cloud or threat. Press, publicity, pictures seem to be such an area for us. There are reasons, of course, in the past, for this.
At any rate, at no time did I feel “angry” at you or at Pantheon, only at The System, and chiefly at myself for getting caught in this. By “The System” I mean that American tendency (of which Pantheon is remarkably free) toward
commercialization of spiritual goods on an enormous scale in the same way as material things are commercialized. However, this is the system in America. One cannot operate outside of it. One must work with it and keep one’s integrity somehow in the process, which I certainly feel Pantheon does. The fact that you have been able to launch a successful book without intruding in any way into—or without any exploitation of—our private lives or personalities is really quite miraculous, and we realize and appreciate it. I also realize that your understanding and protection of our attitude has involved difficulties and possibly sacrifices on your part, although I would not think it had actually affected the sales of the book. So it is I who should thank you, and also say I am sorry for the trouble this has caused.
Now, we can forget about this and take it for granted. I will wait to hear from you on the time for the photograph. The children are all home now—my youngest boy minus his baggage which he left locked up in some station, carrying carefully instead four horned toads in a cigar box.
The weather is autumn-ish and the cook returns Monday. Life hums again!
Darien
Wednesday, September 7th [1955]
Dear Mina,*
I write in pencil sitting on the terrace with my eye on the new moon-flower bud: I cannot miss another opening. Saturday, after looking at that bud in the rearview mirror all the way down from Ashfield, being sure the drafts were not too rough on it, etc.—then depositing it on the terrace and telling all the children we would watch it open that evening—it went and sprang open as I went for a short swim at four!
Now I shall keep watch, or set a child as ground Observation Corps when I leave this spot. Anyway, it was extremely decorative—unbelievable, really. “Like a moon,” one of the children said, “and the round wire cage is the world,” one of those rare beauties that seem to be quite natural in Ashfield but simply fantastic here on my porch.