After the Stroke by May Sarton

Annella Brown called the other day and told me that a friend of hers had been kept in Emergency for six hours, sitting on a hard bench. It seems unbelievable.
    Larry looks extremely well and is determined to smoke his pipe again soon. In the course of our conversation Eda said that when there was a certain kind of silence in the apartment, she knew Larry was reading my journals, which he has read and reread. “They give me peace,” he said. Other people have said so, but his praise means a great deal—and so much for those who think of me as a writer pleasing only women!
    They were very kind to Tamas who revels in attention and when he gets it almost becomes his old self again. Meanwhile Pierrot had disappeared—he had followed me down to the picking garden at around four and didn’t come back, but thank goodness I did hear a mew at the door and knew he was safe before we left to have dinner at Dockside.
    We sat at a splendid table in the window looking out at the harbor and off to the side so it was not noisy. I had a simply delicious sole stuffed with lobster. Eda had her ritualistic Maine lobster and Larry had a seafood mixture. This was followed—except for Larry whose doctor insists that he lose weight—by praline and walnut ice cream pie. Wow!
    This morning Tamas managed the stairs so I shared my breakfast with him. It is the only intimate time together now and I treasure it. Pierrot displaces a great deal of atmosphere and comes to lie beside me at night—but I miss dear Tamas. I had to give up coaxing and laboring to get him upstairs at night when I was ill, and this is one of the real losses of old age as he and I grow old together. He is very lame these days.
    The LeShans must be about ten years younger than I, so I felt rather proud to be myself and nearly seventy-five.
    People imagine my life here as peaceful and sedentary, but they can’t imagine of course what human problems pour in here every day. Yesterday a parcel which contained a letter and a cassette. An aunt whose nephew is dying of AIDS begged me to listen to the cassette, a concert which included his setting of two poems of mine—and to write him. I’ll do that today.
    A long unhappy letter from an old lady shut up in a nursing home—we have corresponded for years, and whatever else I don’t do, I must write to her.

Thursday, August 21
    Yesterday was perfect, clear and cool, and again today everything shines and sparkles with just a hint of autumn in the air. I went out to the garden and worked for a happy hour, cutting back the autumn-flowering clematis which had taken over half the fence, smothering the larger and more beautiful clematis that flower in June. Of course I am discovering all the things Karen did not have time to do. The lilies are doing very well; they had to be staked with longer stakes. It does seem very odd that the picking garden is finally, in late August, giving me flowers. Next year I’ll buy more flats as the snapdragons I bought in flats are at present “best” of the lot. As usual self-sown nicotiana has taken over flower beds and must now be pulled out. The calendulas are delightful. I love the silky orange ones with green hearts.
    It is impossible to write letters morning and afternoon, so I have decided to get back to my old routine of gardening in the afternoon—a way of rinsing my eye and feeling whole again. It is hard to say how tired I am of responding by letter, even to dear friends. The endless answering was always a problem, but now with diminishing energy—I have to remind myself that I am nearly seventy-five—it often seems beyond my strength and will.
    I love writing to Juliette, but she is really the only correspondent I look forward to answering.

Friday, August 22
    Because I am well I no longer suffer from the acute loneliness I felt all spring and summer until now. Loneliness because in spite of all the kindnesses and concern of so