At a friend’s suggestion, I picked up a copy of May Sarton’s At Eighty-Two the other day. I’d read Sarton’s Journal of a Solitude decades ago, and it spoke to me so deeply of a life I wanted to live – a life filled with flowers, animals, friends, and days by the sea filled with writing. Since I’d written about kairos time just a few weeks before, when I opened At Eighty-Two I was delightfully surprised to find that she had named this journal “Kairos.” Sarton gave the term a different definition than I had -- “a unique time in a person’s life; an opportunity for change.”
Written near the end of Sarton’s life, the unique time she was referencing was aging — her coming to terms with it and how it presented occasions for change. As I’ve witnessed friends and family members coming of age, so to speak, I’ve thought often of the challenges aging brings, as well as the opportunities. Reading Sarton’s journal provided me with increased understanding and compassion for those who are ahead me on this journey, as well as time for reflection on the quality of their lives and what may lie ahead for me as I move toward what Sarton called “real old age.” “70 seems so young!” she remarked from the perspective of the age of 82, so perhaps I have time to prepare, though like Sarton, my parents were aged in their 70s, my mother suffering a massive stroke that left her speechless at 72, the same age I will be on my next birthday, and my father the incapacity and dementia of advanced Parkinson’s disease in his mid-70s.
Many of the entries in Sarton’s journal center around the changes she did not invite into her life – her diminished physical and mental capacities. “Forgetting where things are, forgetting even the names of friends, names of flowers . . . forgetting so much makes me feel disoriented sometimes” (27). I’ve certainly experienced all of these. Recently, I spent many hours trying to remember where I’d put my son’s 1st year calendar, and many more trying to find an important notebook. There’s a particular flower in my garden whose name I regularly forget, only knowing it begins with “a.” I go through the list – allium, alyssum – ah, there it is, astilbe. I’ve yet to feel disoriented by this, though a bit disquieted, especially when I go down to the basement and in the short time it took to traverse the stairs no longer have any idea why I went down there. Surely there was a reason. I do wonder, however, about my dear sister, suffering from Alzheimer’s, as she can get lost in time and not know the present from the past, or of a friend, similarly afflicted and now deceased, who would get lost walking around his long-time neighborhood, or of my father who had awake nightmares, reliving soldiers bleeding out in the MASH he ran in World War II. What is it truly like to live in that state of disorientation? How fearsome, even panicky it must be. How can one prepare for that? How can one provide comfort to those experiencing it?
Many pages of Sarton’s journal are devoted to the piles of papers on her desk, the boxes of unanswered letters, and the time she wastes – sometimes hours in a day – trying to find a misplaced bill or a particular photograph. The clutter consumes her and she longs for an empty desk. She writes that she doesn’t want any more things in the house that will need to be disposed of, and that she is even bored with her books. Many of my friends and I are at the same stage of decluttering and disposing. It seems we spend the first three quarters of our lives accumulating and the rest of it trying to rid ourselves of things we no longer need nor want. Books are the one exception for me, for I seem to accrue them perhaps even more quickly than I empty my house of them. I did a great emptying of over two thousand books when I moved my officeful of books into my home. It’s so difficult now to decide which ones should go. Perhaps I’ll have a chance to teach again, or want to re-read a beloved text, or seek out particular passages for a blog post. Maybe my heirs will appreciate this or that book someday. My friend, Steve, who died many years ago now, appointed a mutual friend to be the executor of his books, with a particular order in which friends could peruse his books and choose those they would like. I’d like to do the same. For the time being, I post those I’m ready to part with on Facebook, and have such joy in placing them in the hands of friends who will enjoy them now. Plus, this often gives me the opportunity to visit with friends I haven’t seen in a long time. The paper clutter is another story. I’m in the midst of another purge at the moment, though as I sort through the files and piles, I often find a treasure that I’m so glad to have kept. Perhaps I’ll revisit it in another five years. My friend, Joan, stripped her belongings down to the bare bones in the last years of her life – her possessions finally amounting to a few forks, spoons, and knives; a couple of pans; three plates; two cups; a couple changes of clothes; three blankets and the sheets on her bed; a couch, a bed, some chairs and a table; a few books; and the new laptop that let her stay in touch with her grandchildren that I’d gotten for her a few weeks before she died. I have no desire to do the same, still appreciating the plants, artwork, scattered dog toys, piles of books and music, and enough dinnerware to welcome guests that make this house a home, but I admired her paring down of the paper clutter to one succinct notebook that made clear, if not easy, to know what to do and whom to call on that day I found her collapsed on her living room floor.
Increasingly throughout her journal, Sarton ponders “how to deal with continual frustration about small things like trying to button a shirt” (27), unsettled by her “pitiable state of weakness and inability to do anything much” (78), her inability to walk around her garden – one of the great joys of her life, the difficulty of going up and down stairs, and the frightening fatigue that made getting out of bed each day a struggle. I’m fortunate still to have energy, far more than I had in earlier years. In some ways I’ve had the unique opportunity to experience what it is to “youthen,” given what a particularly eloquent friend of mine has termed my “Benjamin Buttony” life of spending my 20s and 30s in and out of hospitals, with all sorts of limitations on my physical abilities, and having “died” at least three times. I don’t look back on the glory days of my youth and vigor since I’ve been far more vital in my 50s and 60s than in younger years. But like Sarton, I’m frustrated by what my hands can no longer do — as she says, small things, like trying to open jars or to snap the multitude of snaps on my grandson’s onesies, not to mention all the buckles on the stroller. A long-time friend and I recently had a lively chat of all we now rely on – jar openers, pliers, and partners – to open ziplock bags, medicine bottles, baby food containers. At least I can still type. No longer able to write, Sarton had taken to dictating her books. And while I’ve given up some favorite hikes, no longer trusting my balance on the steep slopes, I’m still able to go for long walks in the woods every day. Perhaps one of the lessons I’m learning from this is the importance of appreciating every day those things I can still do.
One of Sarton’s deepest discomforts and dissatisfactions of her old age was not having achieved the kind of recognition and acclaim she so desperately craved, bemoaning not being included in this or that anthology or having had her poetry reviewed for years, despite the dozens of books she had written, and the thousands sold, and the overwhelming number of letters from those who appreciated her work. I am grateful to be rid of any need for that I may have had in my youth. Perhaps that was one of the great gifts of struggling so mightily simply to live in my earlier years, and certainly a lesson to be culled from Sarton’s journal – to come into old age with a knowing that it is enough, no, more than enough, to have lived and loved well, to have given what we could give, and hopefully to have enhanced life for some and done a little good in the world. As Carol Christ put it so eloquently, that “while recognizing inevitable death, loss, and suffering, . . . our task is to love and understand, to live for a time, to contribute as much as we can to the continuation of life, to the enhancement of beauty, joy, and diversity” (321).
As she lost her abilities and capacities, Sarton increasingly dealt with depression, and came to a point where she welcomed death. Yet, she began to realize that one of her “ . . . problems has been that anything which was not writing at my desk did not seem like my real life or valid work . . . “ (107). In the later entries, she chastised herself on a nearly daily basis for all she had not accomplished. I’ve suffered the same affliction much of my life, often considering only those things I truly consider to be “useful,” mostly to others, as worthy of my time, and rarely allowing myself the simple pleasures of playing the piano, putting together a jigsaw puzzle, listening to music, or sitting by the lake for any length of time. Here I need to hearken to Sarton’s insight, revealed to her as she entered this new phase of life– “If I can accept this, not as a struggle to keep going at my former pace but as a time of meditation when I need ask nothing of myself, will nothing except to live as well as possible, as aware as possible, then I could feel I am preparing for a last great adventure as happily as I can.” She was, she said, “learning a new kind of happiness . . . which has nothing to do with achievement or even creation” (252). I’m not quite there yet, but I am sensing that this letting go of the need to be productive and accomplish so much in a day may be the most important lesson in this journal for me.
The things that once made me aspire to a life like Sarton’s, however, continued to enliven her days, as they do mine. She had a multitude of dear and long-lived friends and intimates with whom she corresponded and visited regularly. Though Covid has made those loved dinners and lunches out with friends a thing of the past for me, I’m so grateful for the companionship of those with whom I correspond, speak, and walk regularly, or with whom I pick up as if no time has passed at all even though it’s been months or years. I’ve found such treasure in friendships that now span twenty, fifty, even seventy years. It is a different kind of knowing and loving than I ever knew possible – one of the greatest gifts of “real old age.” She delighted in good food, and to those who encouraged her to eat a healthier diet she said, “damned if I’m not going to have a piece of chocolate every day” (262) — a passion I share. And of course, Sarton had her books; her house filled with flowers, which, she said, “are as important as food, perhaps more so” (60); and her revels in the sunrise, especially “when the leaves have gone,” and she could view “ a great sea of ocean from left to right,” enabling her to see that “much is good” (133-134), as I do also, now that the leaves have gone and the great expanse of Superior opens before me. And then there is Pierrot, her beloved cat, who brought her such comfort and delight, and as she so often said, made her life livable. What indeed, would we do without the unconditional love and deep comfort of the trust and companionship of our four-legged loved ones?
As I begin to experience, and occasionally bemoan, the diminishment of my physical and mental capacities rather than their expansion, I’m finding that what quickly comes to mind are the many other capacities that increase with age – patience, understanding, graciousness, and a humility engendered by all that is now so regularly humbling. I hope I can welcome this different kind of Kairos time, between the Christmas and the end of my years of life,[i] for the unique time that it is and the new opportunities it brings, with a recognition and acceptance my limitations, as well as a certain grace to myself for all I can no longer do while embracing what I can, and like Sarton, with a continuing delight in and appreciation for the gifts of friendship, flowers, first light, and furry ones.
Sources
Christ, Carol. 1989. “Rethinking Theology and Nature.” In Plaskow, Judith and Carol Christ, eds. Weaving the Visions: New Patterns in Feminist Spirituality. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco. 314-325.
Sarton, May. 1996. At Eighty-Two. New York: W.W. Norton & Co.
[i] See my earlier post, “Kairos Time,” which I experience in the timeless days between Christmas and New Years’.