It's been a run-around kind of week, with appointments involving varying degrees of stress, and this morning was my chance at returning to stillness. Living a writerly reader's life lends itself to a bit of isolation and an initial sense of jarring can occur when said writerly reader is forced to rub elbows with the wider world (hence my enjoyment of Sarton's Journal of a Solitude in which, among other things, she addresses the issue of isolation, albeit from the position of a writer living absolutely alone). So this morning, with the sun shining on desk, books, and (seemingly) cuddle-starved felines, I indulged in some 'get back to my reality' time. This inevitably involved reading and listening to music. Oh, and a fresh tea biscuit with a healthy dollop of blueberry jam.


What I like about Sarton's Journal is its transparent nature, as if she leaves nothing cloaked, but takes out all of her impressions and emotions for sharing and analysis. And I find what she has to say about women writing in the 70s (Journal of a Solitude being published in 1973) fascinating . . . especially (sadly) since little seems to have changed in terms of the complications women face when attempting to balance 'life' and 'work/writing'.

And the frequent insights and quotables.

This one struck me this morning:

There has been a long hiatus in this journal because I have had no days here alone, no days when time opened out before me. I find that when I have any appointment, even an afternoon one, it changes the whole quality of time. I feel overcharged. There is no space for what wells up from the subconscious; those dreams and images live in deep still water and simply submerge when the day gets scattered.