http://worldcat.org/entity/work/id/196642364

The house by the sea : a journal

"I am far happier now, but in some ways less alive, and I miss that acute aliveness. I enjoy everything tremendously - the sea, the flowers, my life here, the animals - but I am seldom at the pitch of ecstasy, and I sometimes feel that my mind itself has lost its edge." Life in York, Maine, several years after the New Hampshire Journal of a Solitude - poetry diminished ("I never imagined that river could go dry - but it has"); perceptions temporarily dulled by a lingering virus, then restored to familiar acuity; recurrent brooding on aging and "the fear of death. . . or rather, I should say, the fear of dying in some inappropriate or gruesome way." In the earlier days of this two-year period, a search for equilibrium, for uninterruption dominates: "It is not that I work all day; it is that the work needs space around it." A large correspondence, uninvited visitors, too many weeds among the marigolds disrupt and interfere. Later, despite the deaths of cherished friends, the drift into senility of others (including a longtime companion), the intense, intrepid Sarton emerges: warming to friends and fine conversation, railing against "the slack self-indulgent stuff that passes for poetry these days," flourishing from honors accorded, sharing her singular views - spring flowers in a snowstorm, a gray and rosy sunrise, wineglass elms in the distance. An urgent press for self-discovery, contemplative and "on the pulse." (Kirkus Reviews)

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