Welcome to Litsy!

#BookHaul from The Book Barn in Niantic, CT. Can you believe I visited exactly one structure in their sprawling, 3-location empire before my hands got too cold and I quit? 😅🥶 My wallet gives thanks to Mother Nature.

Her sentence about having her “real life” just resonates. Summer is a lovely season. It also tends to be a busy social season. Routine is shifted, personal time is allocated differently, and I find my reading life has to become one I fight for in the summer months. It‘s nice to be able to shift in and out of real life for a bit.

I am still slowly savoring May Sarton‘s words. She‘s got me contemplating the clusters of my life and finding comfort in the knowledge they occur. I am hoping to embrace a brief cluster of bookish solitude this weekend. 🌻💛

“Begin here. It is raining”

Aptly, it‘s raining here too. And as May describes the rain ticking at the window, I hear it too.

Came back to this book tonight. I cannot sleep, thanks to some bad dreams, so I am listening to the audiobook version. May‘s writing is so soothing. Perfect when I need something to fall asleep to.

My cat Lorelei on a sleepy day.

“I always forget how important the empty days are, how important it may be sometimes not to expect to produce anything, even a few lines in a journal.”

“The most valuable thing we can do for the psyche, occasionally, is to let it rest, wander, live in the changing light of a room, not try to be or do anything whatever.”

#catsoflitsy

Boots is joining me for an early morning read. #catsoflitsy

“I am not discreet about anything that concerns feeling. My business is the analysis of feeling.”

I keep forgetting that this book was written in 1973 and not in modern times, when we discuss mental health more openly. Great read so far.

This library book has been circulating since 1981, wow!

May Sarton is amazing

"For a long time now, every meeting with another human being has been a collision. I feel too much, sense too much, am exhausted by the reverberations after even the simplest conversation. But the deep collision is and has been with my unregenerate, tormenting, and tormented self...I feel like...a machine that breaks down at crucial moments, grinds to a dreadful halt, "won't go", or, even worse, explodes in some poor innocent person's face."

I wish I had started this earlier in the pandemic. What lovely reflections not just on solitude, but community and connection, and nature. I took my time with this short book, underlining many lines, letting the passages marinate. One I will come back to again and again. April #Bookspin complete.

Late post - this was my final read of 2020. It was very fitting, considering that I live by myself and went the entirety of December without seeing anyone to reduce my risk of getting/spreading covid. I hope our restrictions ease up and the numbers go down soon because it has been a lonely month 😔 but this book made me feel a bit better about my situation. Sarton writes about solitude in a very empowering way. I hope to read more of her work!

‪“I shall be glad for October, when this queer, hot, uncertain September has gone its way.” — May Sarton in Journal of a Solitude‬

I'm not sure how to feel about this book right now. I feel like it could be a really good book for me in the future. I'm not entirely sure I 'got it', but feel if I come back to it at another time (maybe when I'm older?) I might enjoy it more. 🤔 I'm just not sure. I think, for now, it's so-so... I think if I come back & try it later, I may enjoy it more.
I will keep it on my shelves and try for a re-read in the future.

Found the parts dealing with her struggles with depression, being social, and healing the results of her angry outbursts interesting. Other bits not so much. Heard so many good things about this one, but for me it fell short and dragged on.

@CaliforniaCay

This book was completely lovely. My favorite parts were Sarton‘s meditations on solitude, nature, and the ranges in her moods. I‘m glad I savored it over the course of a few months. I would recommend the book both to those experiencing solitude and those completely deprived of it (by young children, for example!).
Thanks to Gretchen Rubin‘s Happier podcast for introducing me to the author!

Besides books about girls named Jane, this was the only other #startswithJ book I could find on my shelf. #anditsaugust @RealLifeReading

#sarton, #riotgrams, #notebooksjournals, #literaryjournals, #neworleans, #grist

"We are one, the house and I, and I am happy to be alone"

#introverting #maybookflowers @RealLifeReading

Poet and novelist May Sarton retreated to Norton, New Hampshire for a year to write. While she lived alone, she had many visitors and took many trips while there. This lovely journal contains her thoughts throughout the year. She meditates on a lot of issues and often says in few words what I struggle with but would take me pages to say. The book is like talking to an old friend who speaks so beautifully you never want to leave.

The reasons for depression are not so interesting as the way one handles it, simply to stay alive.

Thanks for the heads-up on today's kindle non-fiction sale! Here's my haul - and believe me, I could've gotten more! #brokebooknerd

This book resonates with me so much, on so many levels! This quote right now is me to a tee.