Free After the Stroke by May Sarton

hoping for breakfast to appear—and there he was. Then I did a wash of shirts, pajamas and such, and had a bath. Now I have just called Juliette Huxley in London to catch up with her. She had been for a long walk on the Heath. How nostalgic I felt hearing that—and that at nearly ninety she can do it! Whereas I can walk only a few yards without losing my breath. It is now fourteen days to what I hope will be my emancipation.
    I forgot to note here the marvelous changes outside: now the field is a strange pinkish color, the tall grasses ripple in the wind, and the thread of the path through it is bright emerald green. It is more than six months since I have walked down to the sea but I listen to it more than ever, great presence that is never still.
    I also forgot to note how much I enjoy my daily drive to the post office, about four miles, first through the woods on this place, then out to salt marshes, and there I watch every day for a small inlet where two geese, two brown ducks and a white one swim about together. If I see them my heart leaps up and I feel happy—and can’t help saying what I remember of William Allingham’s:
    Four ducks on a pond,
    A grass-bank beyond,
    A blue sky of spring,
    White clouds on the wing:
    What a little thing
    To remember for years,—
    To remember with tears! *
    Later on, once in town, I observe the very few cared-for small gardens and what is blooming there. Here the only glorious thing to see is New Dawn, a cascade these days of pale pink roses over the fence—at least they have flourished in this summer when nothing else has.
    * In Come Hither , comp. by Walter de la Mare (Knopf, 1960), p. 517.

Monday, July 21
    Driving slowly to pick up Royce and Frances last evening, I looked at all the wild flowers along the road, the summer crop just coming into bloom—meadow rue, goldenrod, herb willow—their names taste of summer days and evenings. I had felt really ill all day, but so looked forward to what we had imagined would be a gala dinner at Arrows, one of the few Maine restaurants in Gourmet , Royce said. We had been there before, enjoying sitting in the wide porch looking out on a garden. But it has changed hands—the maitre d’ a young man in open shirt and trousers, very casual, said he had no note of a reservation for Roth, though Royce had called the day before. He was so high and mighty that we were tempted to leave, but he finally deigned to seat us and then we were confronted with a ridiculously expensive menu—that we suspected would not be worth the fortune involved. Quite right.
    But we had a wonderful talk, partly about what the perfect marriage is if there is such a thing, and all agreeing that the end is friendship, the desideratum, it must begin and end there. Any such talk always sends me back to Homer as quoted by Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson in their anthology Another World Than This :
    For there is nothing more potent or better than this: when a man and a woman, sharing the same ideas about life, keep house together. It is a thing which causes pain to their enemies and pleasure to their friends, but only they themselves know what it really means.

Wednesday, July 23
    Yesterday I felt so ill I almost called off lunch with Huldah who drove over from Center Sandwich. Today I have written a few letters and set the table very happily for Anne and Barbara, and feel better. I saw Lucy, Dr. Petrovich’s assistant, yesterday afternoon, and much to my amazement the EKG showed a perfectly synchronized heartbeat which she attributes to the medicine—Amiodoroni—which has to accumulate in the system to do its work. Terrified that Dr. Petrovich will now want me to cancel the operation, I insisted that my heart might be normal but my intestinal tract was not. For I could not undertake a lecture trip in my present state. Also Lucy thinks the irregular heartbeat will slide in and out, no certainty that it will stay