PART I: THE BROWN NOTEBOOK

My mother is dying, in isolation, on the top floor of Saint Anne's Hospital in Fall River, Massachusetts. Through her windows, she sees the gray iridescent spires of Saint Anne's Church and the silver-green Taunton River where she swam, after sauna with Finnish friends, when she was a youth. This bone-colored December morning she is concerned she is late for high school, and she cannot find her brown notebook. I tell her I shall find it for her. Later, I do. 
      I find her notebook again one afternoon six weeks after she has died. It is in her Hixville dressing table, beneath the broken House of the Seven Gables plate which she had wrapped in an old Adams Bookstore bag. I lift her notebook out of the drawer, take it to the shuttered bedroom window, and open not to a draft of one of my mother's junior year themes, but to a letter written by my grandmother to my dead sister, Shelley.  
      Grandmother writes of the robins who visit the Fall River garden path each day outside her downstairs bedroom window, the stone path just past the larkspur and bee balm, alongside the bells of Ireland. My grandmother tells my sister she thinks the visiting robins have something to do with a visit from her. From her bedroom window, my grandmother tells my sister, she watches every morning as my mother fills the bird bath with warm water, listens to the frog she calls Ichabod Crane splash in the pond ringed around with white and green quartz stones, and rakes the soil around the double red peonies growing along the Downing Street picket fence.

As I read my grandmother's lines, I smell the Downing Street soil. Just as I smell the soil of Oak Grove Cemetery. The rotting oak and maple leaves mix with dead geraniums and sweeten the cemetery turf. Jonquils and pansies shoot up around my sister's pink gravestone, then die. The breeze makes the branch tips of the willow on our family plot brush across the face of a stone angel on someone else's.  
      I am a little girl, and I sit with my mother on our white wrought-iron bench during our afternoon visits. My mother, Thelma, leaves bell jars of dried statice on Shelley's grave and on those of her father and grandparents. The robins visit. Their vermilion breasts flash among the gravestones. I smell these memories.  
      I turn to another notebook page and remember robins visit my mother every summer in Hixville, too, although she calls juncos the true mourners, the true bearers of her grief as they sit among the dry grasses and milkweed outside the kitchen window seal colored November afternoons. 
     Beyond the kitchen yard, and beyond the shuttered bedroom window, the pine woods are moist and deep, and my mother writes on the last page of the brown notebook: Dearest Shelley, I should like to begin a kind of spiritual diary so that I can talk with you. 
      But my grandmother in Fall River sees the robins through the window from her black iron bed, and she calls their daily visit a visit from her granddaughter. She writes in the notebook she hopes she will be lucky enough to see Shelley in heaven. Until then, she tries to be quiet, she says, just as Shelley asks her to be. 
      I turn to other pages and find my mother's notebook has been shared not only with my grandmother, but also with Shelley. I can draw, I can read, I can write . . . I can draw, read, write. Draw, read, write. I can.  
      Shelley prints the words again and again. She is in the first grade at the Davol School. It is 1955, the year she dies. She prints her stepfather's name on a page by itself. So he will love her, as she loves him. She prints her name, alongside his, and above hers, she prints mine. 
      Dear Shelley, I'm very lonesome today. I keep looking for you. My grandmother writes my sister another letter in the notebook with the brown covers. 
      Shelley has printed Thank you on several of the pages. Thank you, Mr. Green, Miss Sullivan, Mrs. Burke. My mother has written on the lines in between. What would you like for Christmas, Shelley? A book?  
      Originally my mother used the notebook for attendance-taking at her Saint Mark's Episcopal Sunday school class. The names of her pupils—Marita, Agnes, Jon, Linwood, Constance—are listed for 1942-43. On other pages are her pupils' grades received for the tests they took. Her note to herself for the upcoming Sunday school Christmas exchange that year mentions she will give each of her pupils a copy of Dickens's A Christmas Carol. The minister, Mr. Atwood, plans to read the entire story at the Christmas service, and my mother's pupils will follow along in their own books. 
      My grandmother writes to my sister. Dear, There are two little robins come to see me every day. I feel as if it was you coming to see me, for I'm awful lonesome without you. I hope I will meet you, if God thinks I may, I will be so happy then. We will talk together, not of worldly things, but nice happy things.  
      I look up from the pages. Like the solitary mourner in Munch's The Scream, I open my mouth and find I am voiceless. I have no new language, no mourning vocabulary to ask how I shall bear a lifetime of not being able to tell my mother I have found her notebook. 
      So we will be quiet and peaceful, my grandmother writes in both of her letters. I am trying to be quiet as you would like me to be. Goodbye for now, dear Shelley. Nana. 
      My grandmother's closing lines seem to be a message for me as I stand by the shuttered window in Hixville. I shall try to be quiet and peaceful, as all of the notebook writers would want me to be. I take my pencil, and on the inside of the back cover I write, I'm lonesome without you, but I shall keep looking for you. Good-bye for now, Mama dear.

PART II: THELMA'S JOURNAL

Village of Hixville
Dartmouth, Massachusetts
June 24, 1981

Emerson, my grandson, presented this journal to me for my birthday, June 23. Emerson is only two years old. He was named for Ralph Waldo Emerson, the Sage of Concord.

June 26, 1981

I want to record the name of the Concord bookstore we visited last week: Barrow's. Barrow's sells old books, and Allegra found there a storehouse of books on Emerson and the other Concord writers. I found yet another copy of that dear little book of Christopher Morley's, Parnassus on Wheels. 
      Victoria Lincoln, the Fall River writer, died last week, and Barrow's has a copy of her Charles Dickens' biography, but no copy of her February Hill.

July 2, 1981

Visited the Sakonnet Vineyards in Little Compton yesterday and learned the meaning of the Indian word sakonnet: place where the wild goose dwells. 
      The wild raspberries near the barn are ripe. Tasting them today reminded me of the summer of '41 that Andrew and I spent here building range shelters and brooders, raising Rhode Island Reds and Bard Rocks. Our father had died the year before, and this special summer was meant for Andrew.

July 11, 1981

Membership card came from Folio Society. Joined it late this year. Even their books are expensive now. Ordered four Folio books: Waugh's Black Mischief and Anne Hughes, Her Boke for Allegra and Thoreau's Walden and Bird Poems for me.

July 18, 1981

We saw the Pissarro exhibit last week at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. It was a large exhibit, the paintings hanging in several galleries. Allegra lifted Emerson to view many of the works, and young though he is, he seemed to be registering what he saw. After viewing the delights of Pissarro's country landscapes, I entered the gallery where his bridge scenes and cityscapes were hanging. I was much impressed by them, by the bustle and activity on his bridge. There was one English bridge, Charing Cross, and the light and color, cool and blue, are quite different from those in the French scenes. We saw the new I. M. Pei wing, but as it was not open, we did not enter it.

August 1, 1981

My father's birthday. He was born 103 years ago.

August 5, 1981

Allegra visited. We had two grand hours together, with Emerson playing contentedly as we talked. Yes, she was just as stirred as I was by The White Hotel. We discussed it, and we wept together over it.

August 14, 1981

Henry James claimed that 'summer afternoon' is the most beautiful phrase in the English language. Remembering Allegra, Emerson and me sitting in the garden of the Old Manse one June afternoon, I agree with Henry James. It's what the phrase evokes!

August 30, 1981

My mother's birthday. She was born in 1876 on Downing Street in Fall River. She and I spent lovely summer afternoons together. 
      The long, artemisian white-pine cones fall noisily to the ground. The red squirrels gather them. 
     I picked a few glads for my mother's birthday. My father grew them in our Fall River garden, and I planted a few this year here in Hixville. The four I picked—three white, one pink—are at the window in the Bennington vase Allegra brought me from Vermont.

September 1, 1981

Allegra has had a poem accepted for publication in a small poetry journal. Her poem is entitled "Fireflies", and she tells me it's about our Shelley in the backyard one summer evening in Fall River. I was deeply touched.

September 10, 1981

We went back to Concord yesterday—Allegra, Emerson, and I. This time we went to Sleepy Hollow Cemetery and up to Authors' Ridge to visit the graves of Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, and the Alcotts. Our Emerson delighted in the visit. He climbed up to the ridge and walked around the headstones as interestedly as did we. I was touched by the smallness of Thoreau's stone on which is carved simply 'Henry.' We lingered at the Emerson plot. Next to him is Lidian; behind him is young Waldo.

September 15, 1981

Allegra has had two haiku published.

September 25, 1981

On Wednesday we went to Boston to visit the new wing of the Museum of Fine Arts. We saw the special exhibit which is in the new wing this month, The Great Bronze Age of China. The light in the new wing enables the viewer to see the intricate carving and inscriptions on the bronze vessels. I think the wing's light is what I remember, especially the natural light from the arched roof.

September 28, 1981

Yesterday I picked some bittersweet. (It's nice to have a patch of it on the property.) I put a long tendril of it across the top of the fireplace screen. This morning the berries had cracked open, and it looks lovely—the yellow and orange berries—against the black screen. I can't wait for Emerson to see it, finger it, chuckle over it in his darling way.

October 3, 1981

Allegra wrote. She's reading an Emerson biography, and she sent me this sweet phrase of Emerson's: a bird-while. A bird-while is a short period of time, the length of time a bird sits near you in a tree before flying away. Sometimes I think my hours with my grandson, Emerson, are bird-whiles. Often I confuse him with Shelley. Certainly my few years with Shelley were only a bird-while.

October 6, 1981

In this wooded section of Hixville the fall foliage is lovely. Just went down to the road with Emerson, who is visiting, for mail, and across the pasture the trees that fringe the Shingle Island River are in full, beautiful color. The trees at the back are colorful, too. Emerson pointed out the red and gold leaves floating in the brook when we walked along it this morning.

October 10, 1981

Shelley's birthday.

Born October 10, 1948.
Died March 6, 1955.

I brought in a rose from the tree rose Emerson gave Da and me for Grandparents' Day. I put it at the window in the Bennington vase in honor and in loving memory of an honorable and a loving child, my Shelley. I weep now as I write. She was the embodiment of warmth, generosity, tenderness, and love. She loved her little sister, Allegra. She loved me. How she would have loved Emerson.

October 13, 1981

Allegra wrote to tell me that in a year or two when he is older, Emerson will light a candle for Shelley on her birthday. She will like that. I'm happy about that, too.

October 30, 1981

The red-breasted nuthatch has come back after a two-year absence! It's a shy bird, visiting only the suet back at the edge of the woods. The mockingbird, slender and graceful, is enjoying the berries of the autumn olive.

December 24, 1981

Christmas Eve. We took holly to all the graves.

January 11, 1982

The brown creeper has come all week. He spirals up the oak trees in his unique way, and I was glad he came on Christmas-count day.

February 5, 1982

I am busy today preparing for my Allegra's birthday. She was born on February 7 at 7:07 A.M. When Shelley died, my mother said to me, "Allegra will grow up to be the staff on which you will lean."

February 15, 1982

Just now I came the closest ever to a brown creeper. I was on the way down for the mail, but I paused for a few moments at the narrows in the driveway. I was still, and spiraling up the oak three feet from me was the creeper! I saw his lovely, brown feathers, and I could see how he stiffened his tail to support himself when he paused. I waited until he spiraled to the top and flew to another tree.

March 2, 1982

A robin is in the holly, but a robin is no longer a sign of spring. A few robins stay all winter now.

March 6, 1982

I'm glad Allegra is here today, the 27th anniversary of Shelley's death. Shelley was born at 4:30 P.M. on Sunday, October 10, and she died, almost seven years later, at 4:30 A.M. on Sunday, March 6. There is a coincidence in the hour and the day of these events. 
      It began raining and sleeting as I dug in the garden near the shed, and I've just come back to the house. I'm truly very sad today.

March 25, 1982

The red-winged blackbirds arrived today. Also, there are now two red-breasted nuthatches.

March 26, 1982

This afternoon I baked Emerson's birthday cake, and I'm pleased with the results. It has a train theme this year. Tracks run around the edge of the cake; three trains rest on the track; and next to Happy Birthday, Emerson, I've drawn an engineer's cap, complete with stripes and a brim.

April 6, 1982

Yesterday was as bad as any winter's day. We experienced sharp, biting winds, and ten inches of snow fell. It is being called "the spring blizzard of '82".

May 11, 1982

Today a tragedy struck the Flint, my old neighborhood in Fall River. The cathedral-like church, Notre Dame de Lourdes, burned. Only the stone walls remain. Most of the houses on the street to the south burned to the ground. Da and I wept as we viewed on television the burning of this familiar, beloved edifice. It was the church of theCanadian French people of the Flint. Our own Episcopal church, Saint Mark's, is only a block west of Notre Dame, but the high winds carried the fire to the south.

May 20, 1982

Yesterday Allegra drove me to Fall River. We looked at the remains of Notre Dame. There is only a shell, and rubble lies to the south. The emptiness of the scene stays with me.

June 19, 1982

John Cheever died yesterday. I read much of what he wrote. Cheever was born in Quincy. He attended the Thayer school in Braintree. He won every American literary prize. He is to be buried in Norwell. Right now I'm reading the last book he wrote, a novella entitled Oh What a Paradise It Seemed. He was noted for his short stories and for his novels, Falconer and The Wapshot Chronicle. Often he was compared to Chekhov.

June 23, 1982

We went to the Cheever funeral! Oh what an experience it was. Allegra, Emerson, and I decided on Sunday, seeing the burial was on Tuesday, that we'd go to pay homage to an American writer whom we admire. The service was in the First Parish Church in Norwell. We waited in the cemetery across from the church. Family and close friends attended the church service. The eulogy was given by John Updike, Cheever's close friend. The family and friends walked behind the hearse to the grave. The funeral director beckoned to us to draw close to the graveside. Updike was near us. Two ministers, one Episcopalian, one Unitarian, read the prayers. The flag was removed from the author's casket and given to Mrs. Cheever. The casket was lowered into the grave, and then Cheever's sons and his son-in-law were handed shovels with which they shoveled dirt onto the casket. I had never seen this done—the burying of a loved one by his sons and son-in-law. I was moved by this. Among the few admirers, Allegra spotted Samuel Coale, her old Wheaton English professor. We looked at the slate slabs bearing the names of Cheever's parents, and then we bade adieu to John. It was "an elegy in a country churchyard."

July 23, 1982

On Sunday, the 18th, we journeyed again to Concord. The day was wonderful! However, the temperature reached 98 degrees, and it was very warm in the Old Manse. The house is a jewel in a woodsy setting. Both Emerson and Hawthorne had lived in the Old Manse. We went again to Authors' Ridge, and we had brought flowers (blue hydrangeas) for the graves of Thoreau, Hawthorne, Emerson, Lidian, little Waldo, and Aunt Mary Moody. There was a breeze up there, and I felt that they knew and were happy that we were there. We went again to the Emerson house, and we'll go again when our Emerson is older. Afterwards we went to the Thoreau Lyceum. We bought books, went out into the yard to see the replica of Walden Pond house, and had an interesting conversation with the caretaker on the Concord writers and on some of the books written on the Concord writers.

July 26, 1982

Yesterday, because Emerson is crazy about trains, we took a trip on the Cape Cod-Hyannis railroad. We boarded the train at Buzzards Bay, crossed the canal on the vertical-lift railroad bridge, traveled the full length of the canal, turned east and rode close to the marshes and to the dunes, turned south and arrived at Hyannis. I saw many marsh birds, but could identify only one—the snowy egret! The train passes close to the rear of the Barnstable County jail. I could see two prisoners with their faces pressed close to their barred windows as we rode by. One had his arm thrust through a broken small pane, and he waved listlessly. The freedom of the egret contrasted sadly with this forlorn imprisonment. A large sign on the high prison fence warns the passengers not to converse with the inmates.

August 1, 1982

Sunday—my father's birthday. He was born on Thursday—"Thursday's child has far to go." And he did - spent fifteen years at sea. Once he took up his Uncle Richard's challenge: "to be a true seaman, you must sail around Cape Horn". He booked on to one of the few sailing ships (about 1902) and sailed around the Horn. This was the time he went to the Galapagos Islands. Many times he had gone around the Cape of Good Hope, a much safer journey.

August 12, 1982

Yesterday Emerson and his Mama walked down back, and Emerson brought in for me a little bouquet of wild flowers—pink clover and Queen Anne's lace. Such an exquisite bouquet. I was so pleased.

August 30, 1982

Three pretty gladioli are in the Bennington vase for my mother's birthday. My mother's maiden name was Alice Knott. She was the daughter of Obadiah Knott (Civil War cavalryman and apothecary) and Letitia Broadhurst Knott.

September 12, 1982

The Saturday Review (it had been my favorite literary magazine when it was known as the Saturday Review of Literature) has suspended publication! I subscribed to it back in the late 30's, and it is the loss of a dear friend. It had financial troubles in 1970 or '71; it tried a new format which did not work, and the new format lost for them their editor, Norman Cousins, who published his own magazine, World, to which I subscribed (staying, though, with SR); then it went back to its old format, and Norman Cousins agreed to go back to SR. It endured ten years, ten economically-difficult years. Norman Cousins said last week, "The Saturday Review has been so deep in my bloodstream that I can no more be detached from the effects of its passing than I would be at the loss of a child." My copies had not come all summer, and I felt that SR's end was near. Originally it was a weekly magazine, but for many years it has been a monthly. I say farewell to a friend I have known since my girlhood.

September 14, 1982

Sunday was Grandparents' Day, and Emerson brought us a very lovely gift imported from England. It is a small ceramic model of an English house, and the sweet surprise of it is that it is the Thomas Hardy house! I have put it on the dining room mantel.

September 16, 1982

Another fine American novelist has died. His death was the result of a motorcycle accident: John Gardner. He was only 49. I enjoyed his novels, especially October Light, Grendel, Nickel Mountain, and Freddy's Book. I had just been considering buying his latest book, Mickelsson's Ghosts. Gardner, who held a doctorate in classical and medieval literature, had translated Old and Middle English texts. He called for books with "true morality—life-affirming, just and compassionate behavior." (Quotation by Dr. Bernard Rosenthal, chairman of University of New York's [at Binghamton] English department.) Gardner taught writing at University of New York. The year has seen the passing of Cheever and Gardner.

October 10, 1982

Shelley's birthday. It's Sunday, and she was born on Sunday at 4:30 in the afternoon. I brought in some bittersweet, and it's in a cream-colored jar that was imported from France. The bittersweet is cracking open now, and it's lovely in the pretty jar. It's in loving memory of Shelley. Allegra and Emerson will be arriving soon, and I'm glad. 
      Their being here will help me.

November 8, 1982

I saw the juncos near the barn today. I'd been anxious about their coming as I hadn't seen them near the house. I guess they're timid about coming close to the house because of the dogs. I like to see them when I look out the window.

January 8, 1983

Allegra is becoming very involved with her writing. She has found a mentor. I am excited about her doing this.

January 15, 1983

I finished Elias Canetti's The Torch in My Ear. It is an autobiography that covers ten years of his early life, 1921-1931. I have enjoyed it so much. Canetti won the Nobel Prize in 1981 for his major works, Auto-da-Fe and Crowds and Power. I should like to read the first book of his autobiography, The Tongue Set Free: Remembrance of a European Childhood. I ordered Auto-da-Fe from Mr. Stedman of the Village Bookshop in Padanaram.

 

January 20, 1983

Yesterday Allegra drove me to Fall River where I bought a copy of Fall River: A Pictorial History. In it is a picture of my grandfather, Obadiah Knott. He was a Civil War veteran, and he is pictured (at about age 82) with the last of the Fall River Civil War veterans. 
     Allegra and I were born in Fall River, and we enjoyed driving through our old neighborhood. However, I cried a little when we drove down our old street and passed the house where my mother was born and the house next to it where Allegra and Shelley were born and the house next to that where I was born.

February 27, 1983

Tennessee Williams died last week. He was the great American playwright. I love his The Glass Menagerie, and I have seen two film versions of it. On stage, I saw Cat on a Hot Tin Roof with Sandy Dennis and Summer and Smoke with Eva Marie Saint. I'll miss him.

March 28, 1983

Emerson's birthday. 
      I made a three-layer cake, and I decorated it last night. I used the train theme again. Emerson asked me to. However, this year there are twelve little trains running around the edge of the cake. 
      Emerson and I have a little song, "When I first saw you," and I am wearing the dress I wore when I first saw him at Tobey Hospital in 1979. 
      I am reading Canetti's Auto-da-Fe, and I have ordered from the Village Bookshop the first part of Canetti's autobiography, The Tongue Set Free. 
      D.M. Thomas who wrote The White Hotel has a new book, Ararat. It was well reviewed by The New York Times.

April 23, 1983

I'm reading Northrop Frye's The Great Code, and I've just re-read two of Ezra Pound's lines that I admire:

The apparition of these faces in the crowd,
Petals on a wet, black bough.
 
      Frye calls it "Pound's best-known example of metaphor by juxtaposition." 
      Shakespeare died on April 23, 1616. Perhaps he was born on April 23. It is known only that he was baptized on April 26.

April 30, 1983

The Japanese quince at the back of the house is in bloom. That quince came from my Fall River garden, and it has a distinctive deep pink color. The quince at the side of the house is a paler pink.

May 9, 1983

Yesterday was Mother's Day. Emerson gave me a ceramic house—The Old Curiosity Shop. It was imported from England, as was the other he gave me—Hardy's house. They are both on the mantel, and I like their literary origins. 
      One of the great pleasures of my life is opening my eyes on Sunday morning when Emerson stays over and seeing him peeping in the bedroom door. As soon as he sees that I am awake, he climbs laughingly into bed with me. We play little games, and we talk, and I tell myself what a fortunate grandmother I am.

May 14, 1983

The Saturday Review has been revived! The new publishers are to be congratulated. It is now a bi-monthly publication. The second issue came this week, and I like both. When I subscribed to it in the 30's, it was a weekly magazine, but I'm happy to have it every other month. It's still a good magazine. 
      Bergman's new movie, Fanny and Alexander, is reviewed in SR by Judith Crist. She calls it "a masterpiece". Bergman calls it the "sum total" of his long career. I remember how Allegra and I enjoyed his other films, especially Wild Strawberries and Cries and Whispers.

June 14, 1983

Two of the Folio books came today (three with the presentation volume). Allegra's is Le Grand Meaulnes, and mine is Aubrey's Brief Lives. Two more will come in the fall: My Brilliant Career for Allegra and Pan for me.

July 21, 1983

Yesterday we went to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts to see the Lane collection of 20th century paintings. We liked the Georgia O'Keeffe and the Max Weber paintings. There were many examples of abstract art and some cubist studies. Emerson loves the art galleries, and Allegra always lifts him to view closely those he likes especially well.

July 22, 1983

Allegra left The Color Purple with me. I've just completed it. It's touching and wonderful. From The Color Purple: "Trying to chase that old white man out of my head. I been so busy thinking bout him I never truly notice nothing god make. Not a blade of corn (how it do that?) not the color purple (where it come from?). Not the little wildflowers. Nothing."

September 11, 1983

I've a seed package of English wallflowers. I sent for them. My mother loved them. It was hard to find them when I was little, but I remember one Sunday on the Cape on Old Route 6 we saw a sign on a roadside stand: "English Wallflowers." My mother was happy. She bought a boxful of the young plants that day, and I remember them growing years later in our Fall River garden. Mama's birthday was August 30.

October 7, 1983

I spent a pleasant hour with Milton Travers, our local Indian expert. He lives in Dartmouth near Barney's Joy. I drove up a lane edged with pine and spruce trees, and where the lane widens there stands a life-sized carved wooden Wampanoag. I knew I was at the right place. There is a lovely view across the fields and meadows of the beach and ocean.  
      I now know what Cuttyhunk means: "land lying high out of the water." Cuttyhunk Island is a few miles at sea from New Bedford. 
      I bought a copy of Milton's book, and he was happy to sign it for me. "You must come back," he said when I was leaving.

October 10, 1983

My Shelley's day.
I read Light aloud. It is called an impressionistic study of one day in Claude Monet's life.

December 9, 1983

Andrew's birthday.
And my mother died on this day in 1959.

Christmas Eve, 1983

To Emerson I read aloud from a pretty little Christmas book, A Northern Christmas by Rockwell Kent, the illustrator. It's the account of the Christmas Kent and his young son spent in remote Alaska in 1916.

March 6, 1984

My Shelley died 29 years ago today. I love you, my darling. I miss you. I cry for you.

March 28, 1984

Emerson's fifth birthday! We celebrated it yesterday, Tuesday. The dining room looked pretty with streamers descending from the chandelier. I tied bunches of balloons outside as a welcome sign for Emerson. I love my wonderful grandson.

April 6, 1984

I am reading Allegra's copy of Rituals, a novel by the Dutch writer, Cees Nooteboom. She is reading my copy of Flying to Nowhere, a novel by John Fuller.

April 10, 1984

Flying to Nowhere is a poetical, lean, compressed allegorical novel about an abbey on a Welsh island in medieval times. It was published at the same time The Name of the Rose was, and Flying to Nowhere was somewhat overlooked because of the success of the larger novel. (They both take place in medieval abbeys.) I think Flying to Nowhere is superior to the somewhat flamboyant The Name of the Rose.

April 22, 1984

The daffodils are in bloom. The snowdrops bloomed in the snow and are gone now. The squirrels dug up and took away the crocus bulbs I planted last fall. They did the same to the tulip bulbs a few years ago. However, they don't bother the daffodils.

May 5, 1984

I was happy to read a "Poets' Corner" has been established in the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine in Morningside Heights. It is similar to the "Poets' Corner" in Westminster Abbey. It will be dedicated on Monday, the 7th, to this country's greatest writers. The first writers to be elected are Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman. Washington Irving was previously selected by the dean of the cathedral, Very Rev. James Parks Morton.  
      I remember visiting the Cathedral of St. John the Divine about 32 years ago. My mother was living then. Missionaries happened to be there in the vestibule, and they were selling mother-of-pearl "star of Bethlehem" brooches and necklace pendants they had brought back from the Sea of Galilee. I bought a hand-carved pendant with a silver chain for my mother. Of all the gifts she had received over the years, she cherished that the most because it had come from the Sea of Galilee. How happy I am I brought it home for her, my beloved mother. I miss you so much, Mama.

May 6, 1984

My copy of Eudora Welty's One Writer's Beginnings came. Mr. Stedman of the Village Bookshop ordered it for me. I've just examined the pretty little volume. The pages are tinted the faintest pink, and the dust jacket is pink and pretty. I've read a few pages, and it's like looking back to some of my early years. Eudora talks about the books in the family's bookcase; some of the same titles were in ours. They were readers, and, poor as they were, her parents bought books for birthday and Christmas gifts. Eudora grew up in Mississippi, and her stories gave me, a Northerner, a look at the Delta people, a look that impressed me pleasantly.

May 7, 1984

From Flying to Nowhere: "The evening sun hung on the shoulder of the mountain and lit up the whole garment of the sea. The island seemed to float in darkness that sought the disappearing light. It was like a still voyage towards the shining edge of the world."

May 13, 1984

The two Japanese quinces are in bloom, and the new columbine is blooming. The dogwood blossoms are just opening.

June 3, 1984

On Wednesday (May 30) there was a partial eclipse of the sun. At about 1P.M. it darkened as the moon's shadow passed over the sun. I went outside and had an excellent momentary view of the eclipse. I looked through colored glass. This was the last major sun eclipse of this century. 
      I wrote that Saturday Review had been revived, but I have not received a copy for many months. However, in today's paper I read that a group of Kansas City investors has agreed to buy the Saturday Review from its publisher, Jeffrey Gluck. 
      On Wednesday morning, I saw the eclipse. On Wednesday night, on Channel 2, I saw the two-character film, My Dinner With Andre. I enjoyed listening to Andre and Wally, both playwrights, discuss theater, philosophy, and literature. 
      Last Sunday I watched a film on the life and art of Wilhelm de Kooning, and the Sunday before I watched a film on Arshile Gorky. De Kooning is still living. 
      I am reading Seamus Heaney's Sweeney Astray. Heaney, the Irish poet, has retold the medieval Irish epic poem of Sweeney.

June 15, 1984

I drove to Sylvan Nurseries on Horseneck Road, and there I found a plant—spirea—for which I've searched for years. My mother had one in her garden. As well as the spirea, I bought six heathers. I'm going back for hemerocallis (hybrid day lilies).

June 30, 1984

Lillian Hellman, the American playwright, died today on Martha's Vineyard. She was 79. And I had been thinking of Julia, the movie based on episodes in Hellmann's life. Julia appears in Hellman's book, Pentimento.
I've been reading The Nightmare of Reason, a Life of Franz Kafka. It was written by Ernst Pawel. 
      My new biography of Walt Whitman came. Its author, Paul Zweig, subtitled it The Making of the Poet. Zweig says that Whitman created a "bardic voice for the new nation."

September 6, 1984

This is Emerson's first day of school! He's on the morning kindergarten shift, and I keep looking at the clock and thinking of what he might be doing. I'll call him this afternoon and have him tell me about school. 
      I just called. Emerson loved school!

September 9, 1984

Susan Cheever has written a memoir of her father, John Cheever. It's called Home Before Dark. The New York Times Book Review carried a large excerpt from it, "Remembering John Cheever." She tells of how, when he was a student at Thayer Academy in Braintree, his teacher would promise the class if they were good that John would tell them a story. And they were good! They loved John's stories. I'll wait for her book to come out, and I'll order it. 
      I've had to have my reading glasses upgraded.

October 9, 1984

Allegra and Emerson came yesterday to spend Columbus Day with me. In the late afternoon I read aloud to Emerson two of the Eva Le Gallienne translations of the fairy tales of Hans Christian Anderson. The book is inscribed to Allegra by Eva Le Gallienne. She and I reminisced about our meetings with the famous actress. Richard LeGallienne, the English poet, was her father.

October 10, 1984

This is my Shelley's birthday. I know that she is happy with Jesus and with her Nana, her Grandpa, and her Uncle Andrew. Oh, Shelley, I miss your tender words. I miss them. 
      I brought in a sprig of lilac-colored heath for her birthday. It's in a bud vase at the window.

October 11, 1984

Emerson will take his first violin lesson this afternoon! I am so happy.

November 15, 1984

My first copy of the reborn Saturday Review came yesterday. I hope it survives. It contains an interesting interview with Eudora Welty.

January 5, 1985

It is snowing, and the woods are lovely as they fill up with snow.

Emerson played his violin for us on Christmas. Jingle Bells, London Bridge, and Old MacDonald. He read the music, fingered the strings, played so well. And he's only five.

February 17, 1985

Miss Peabody's Inheritance is a novella, and I've already read it. It arrived in the mail just a few days ago. The book has an interesting format: a novella within a novella. The writer, Elizabeth Jolley, is an Australian, and her book has two settings—Australia and London. The book has lots of literary and musical references, and I like that. The London character resembles Pym's characters. The Australian headmistress, Arabella Thorne, is a strong, intelligent, human woman. I like Jolley's style. 
      Postage rates go up today: from 20 cents to 22 cents.

March 6, 1985

This is the thirtieth anniversary of Shelley's entrance into the Kingdom of Heaven. Darling little Shelley, I love you.

March 8, 1985

My father died forty-five years ago today. It was a Friday.

March 20, 1985

Spring arrived today. Jenny Wren is building her nest right outside of the dining room. There is a box in a corner, and she flies industriously into and out of it with nesting material.

March 28, 1985

Our Emerson's sixth birthday. Emerson surprised us by playing "America" on his violin. He played it beautifully. Afterwards, in the dining room, we had the chocolate horseshoe shaped cake I had baked. I had decorated the dining room with birthday streamers.

April 12, 1985

My cousin, Jessica Knott, died on Thursday, April 11. She never married, but she lived a full, interesting life. She was a Metropolitan Life Insurance office manager for many years. During World War II she enlisted in the Women's Army Corps. Most of her army years were spent in India. She loved the theater. A few times she and I attended performances together, at the Colonial Theater in Boston, to see our mutual friend, Eva LeGallienne, in Mary Stuart and Elizabeth the Queen. Often Jessica would go to New York to see plays and musicals. After she retired seven years ago, she and her sister went every year to London for a week to take in the theater. She was 69. I loved her.

April 20, 1985

On his own, Emerson learned "Grandfather's Clock" and played it for his violin teacher. She was delighted.

May 18, 1985

I read John Updike's The Witches of Eastwick. He describes quite wonderfully the part of Rhode Island that lies between Narragansett and Westerly. I read Updike's book of essays, Hugging The Shore. They are literary essays of criticism. 
      I've ordered Jan Morris's The Matter of Wales. The critics have praised her loving and detailed study of Wales. I hope the book comes soon. 
      Kundera was granted the Jerusalem Peace Prize. 
      I'm reading Julian Barnes's Flaubert's Parrot. As Germaine Greer wrote, "It is a book for people who really love books."

June 10, 1985

Yesterday was Emerson's recital. He played "Grande March" and "At Pierrot's Door." He played beautifully.

June 13, 1985

The Matter of Wales came. I find it engrossing.  
      I've ordered Paul Zweig's book of poems, Eternity's Woods. Zweig wrote the excellent Walt Whitman, The Making of the Poet. Zweig died this spring at the age of 49. Such a loss to the literary world.

June 22, 1985

Emerson is now a first grader. School ended Thursday, the 20th. He received the only "Perfect Attendance" certificate. 
      Son of the Morning Star came yesterday. It is considered to be a remarkable study of Custer and Little Big Horn. It is by Evan S. Connell. I bought it from the History Book Club. Connell researched the Custer story meticulously. It is part biography of Custer, part history of the Plains Indian Wars. I read the first few pages. 
      I've just read Gloria Vanderbilt's Once Upon A Time. I had mentioned it one day to Mr. Stedman, and, thinking that I wanted it, he ordered it for me. So, quite accidentally, I have a surprisingly beautiful piece of autobiographical writing.

July 12, 1985

On Thursday, we went to Concord. There was time only to visit the Orchard House. I bought a sketch of the house. We went again to the Barrow Book Shop for a few minutes. I bought a small book, The Glass Flowers in the Ware Collection. This collection is in Cambridge at Harvard. Allegra bought a history of the Boston Symphony Orchestra for Emerson. On the wall of the shop is a great photograph of James Joyce and Sylvia Beach at the door of her French shop, Shakespeare and Company.

July 14, 1985

On Friday a replica of Thoreau's Walden cabin was dedicated. The fireplace contains one stone from the original hut, and the famous pond can be seen from one window.

July 27, 1985

Emerson and I went to the Cape Playhouse in Dennis on Thursday. A well-known French actress, Leslie Caron, appeared. She had made several American films after being discovered in Paris by Gene Kelly when she was sixteen. She is still winsome and delightful The play, One For The Tango, is a pleasant comedy. She played to a full house.  
      I received an acknowledgment from the London Times. My subscription to the Times Literary Supplement begins on August 3. It will be a nice companion to the New York Times Book Review.

August 1, 1985

My father's birthday.

August 10, 1985

The Times Literary Supplement has come.

August 23, 1985

I went with Emerson and Allegra to the Thornton Burgess house in Sandwich. Allegra bought Emerson a few books. 
      Emerson is now playing a half-size violin. 
      I read in the Times Literary Supplement that Elias Cannetti has written the third volume of his autobiography. It was published in June. I hope I can find it.

September 14, 1985

Emerson is back at school. He's in the first grade and spends six hours a day there. He likes school as much as ever. 
      Allegra has had another poem published.

September 30, 1985

The hurricane named "Gloria" struck New England on Friday, the 27th. We were without power until today. Some trees were uprooted, and many branches were blown off the big trees. I was frightened as I heard the roar of the hurricane and saw the tops of our old, tall pines shaking, twisting, and bending. The hurricane blew over us at 75 miles an hour, and some of the gusts reached 100 miles. The worst of it lasted about four hours. It was a reminder of the worst hurricane of this area, the hurricane of 1938. Gloria formed in the tropics and traveled up the east coast to New England. I am relieved that it is over.

October 5, 1985

I had read Barnes's Flaubert's Parrot, and then I read Metroland. I found Barnes's study of two adolescents amusing and revealing of their secret thoughts, their observations of teachers, classmates, relatives, bus passengers, and Christopher's quaint Uncle Arthur. Christopher matures during his stay in Paris, and I liked the many allusions to French writers and painters. "Part II, Paris" is my favorite part of the book. The narrative flows in Part II. I was pleased that Christopher returned to Metroland and became a happy family man. Barnes is a brilliant man of literature, and his book was a pleasure to me because of its many literary references. Metroland was awarded the 1981 Somerset Maugham Award.  
      I was reminded of J. D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye. About twenty years ago I read it, and loved Salinger's troubled, touching, intelligent adolescent, Holden Caulfield, a student dismissed time after time from private schools. At times I laughed until I cried. The book ends with Caulfield still in his adolescence, but he has control finally over his despair. That splendid book was banned from school libraries!

October 10, 1985

Shelley's birthday. I think of you every hour of every day.

October 11, 1985

Orson Welles, the great film maker, died yesterday at the age of 70. His film, Citizen Kane, is considered the greatest film ever made. He produced it and starred in it.

November 2, 1985

This is Saturday, a cold gray day. We moved here 25 years ago today from Fall River. 
      A little book of Rilke's poetry, Sonnets to Orpheus, came in today's mail.

December 7, 1985

Philip Larkin, the English poet who declined the post of Poet Laureate, died last week. 
      Jon Connell sent me a lovely Christmas gift, an illustrated copy of The Psalms of David. Jon was my neighbor in Fall River. We have always kept in touch. He lives in Boston now. He was a bearer for my Shelley. He was only 17 or 18 then. I chose him because he was a caring boy who loved Jesus. He has studied Christ all his life. He is about 47. The book is beautiful.

December 28, 1985

Anne Baxter, the movie actress, died this month. She was the granddaughter of Frank Lloyd Wright.

January 4, 1986

On Monday, Emerson, Allegra, and I visited the historic district in New Bedford. We hurried up in the cold along Johnny Cake Hill, and visited the Whaling Museum. Emerson loved going aboard the Lagoda, the half-scale whaling ship in the museum. I enjoyed the scrimshaw collection and the collection of whaling oil paintings. On the day before Da left Fort Devens to ship out to Korea, he and I visited the museum and the Seamen's Bethel . . . thirty-four years ago! 
      Da has brought down from the attic Allegra's telescope. Emerson wants very much to see it. He and Da will do some viewing. Emerson wants to see Saturn. They may even have a glimpse of Halley's comet.

March 1, 1986

Allegra and Emerson will be here for a visit in an hour.
The snowdrops peeped out of the ground yesterday.

March 6, 1986

Shelley entered Heaven thirty-one years ago. I think of her every day. I miss her. I love her.

March 8, 1986

Papa died in 1940. So many years ago!

March 10, 1986

Georgia O'Keeffe, our important American painter, died at the age of 98. I have always looked for her canvases at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. In 1924 she married the noted photographer, Alfred Stieglitz.

March 15, 1986

Emerson has been learning a seven-page piece of music, and he and his teacher will play it, a duo, at his recital in June.

March 29, 1986

Emerson turned seven yesterday. We celebrated his birthday today. He and Da went kite flying for a couple of hours. Then we had the birthday dinner and the cake ceremony. Emerson wore his crown and blew out his seven candles. Da and I gave him binoculars. He liked them.

April 24, 1986

This week is Emerson's April school vacation. He and his mother left Massachusetts Monday morning and drove for 22 hours until they reached Orlando, Florida. They are seeing Disneyworld. They will leave on Friday, stop at Cape Canaveral, and will drive north all day Saturday and Sunday.

May 3, 1986

Joe died on April 26. He is being buried today at 10A.M. in Notre Dame Cemetery in Fall River. Allegra has taken care of all the details. Joe's was a sudden death. He was found in his apartment. He was cremated. Allegra brought his ashes home from Brockton last night, and she has lovingly carried them to the cemetery. She bought a beautiful, cross shaped floral piece for the service at the Notre Dame chapel.

May 4, 1986

Allegra bought a granite marker for Joe's grave. Dad is engraved in the center, and carved morning glories twist beneath the letters. I, too, have cried often for him. He was a warm-hearted, personable man sometimes. I loved him once.

May 7, 1986

Allegra drove me to Joe's grave this morning. I was deeply moved by the loneliness of his grave and by remembering that he lived alone for about thirty years. I pray for his peace.

June 2, 1986

Allegra goes often to Joe's grave. We all went on Memorial Day, and she made his grave look lovely. A large basket filled with plants was very pretty. There were vases of fresh flowers, too. Emerson's geranium was near the stone. Joe didn't seem so lonely that day.

June 21, 1986

Last night we attended Emerson's recital. It was a beautiful evening. Emerson and his teacher, Mary Ellen Dollard, played a duo. They played a piece of difficult classical music by Ravel. There was tremendous applause after their presentation. Da and I were proud of our grandson.

August 9, 1986

We stopped at the Middletown cemetery to visit Joe's mother's grave. 
      Joe had bought the lovely stone years ago for his dear mother.

August 30, 1986

My mother's birthday. She was born on Downing Street in Fall River on August 30, 1876.

September 1, 1986

Last week we drove to Boston to the Museum of Fine Arts. There was a special exhibition: "The Bostonians: Painters of an Elegant Age, 1870-1930". We (Emerson, Allegra, and I) lingered in the gallery for two hours. I loved the Winslow Homer watercolors and Childe Hassam's Boston scenes. The exhibition closes on September 14.

September 3, 1986

Today Emerson enters second grade.

September 30, 1986

I have finally read Anita Brookner's Hotel du Lac. It is a gift to readers. The prose is wonderful. I can still see the gray images. I'll read more of Anita Brookner.

October 10, 1986

Shelley's birthday.

October 17, 1986

I must buy a copy of the Fall River writer's biography, Along with Youth, of Ernest Hemingway. The young, much-acclaimed writer is Peter Griffin.

October 23, 1986

I leave in an hour for Charlton Memorial Hospital. I've had some angina problems, and Doctor Gabry insists that I go for tests. Allegra urged me to go. She is taking me. She will take care of the house for me. It is only because of her help that I can go. I hear her driving in now. Little journal, I admit that I am nervous about what lies ahead. I'll write when I come home again.

November 11, 1986

I came home yesterday. I feel well now. My two wonderful doctors, Doctor Franklin Scheel and Doctor Mark Gabry, tested me and treated me. I had suffered a heart attack. I must lose weight. 
      I read Canetti's The Play of the Eyes at the hospital.

December 26, 1986

This was a wonderful Christmas. Emerson brought his violin, and we sang carols to his accompaniment. We opened our gifts, and in the evening we sang again. It reminded me of how we all gathered around my mother at the piano to sing on Christmas night. I can see my father, my brother, my great-aunt, and dear Mr. Townson. After we sang, Mr. Townson always said, "This is a gathering of the angels." Mr. Thomas Townson was my father's school friend, and he was my brother's godfather.

January 10, 1987

Evening grosbeaks came today in great numbers to the feeders.

January 12, 1987

Today I received a telephone call from Peter Griffin. (I had written him a letter on his Hemingway biography.) We talked for more than an hour.

March 6, 1987

Our Shelley died thirty-two years ago. I feel her with me more than ever.

March 29, 1987

We celebrated Emerson's birthday yesterday, and it was, as usual, a memorable day. My grandson is eight now, and I pray nightly that God watch over my dear boy.

August 8, 1987

Yesterday I had an echo-cardiogram. It was a simple test. I lay on an examining table in a darkened room. Two technicians conducted the test. One watched a screen as the other passed a receiver over and over again on the heart area. The heart sends sound waves to the screen. I do not know the results yet. I have advanced heart disease.

August 15, 1987

We went to Concord yesterday. We toured again the Emerson house. The director remembered us, and she said that our Emerson was their guest that time. She knows that he was named after Ralph Waldo Emerson. Then we went to the wonderful Concord Book Shop. I sat in a rocking chair while Allegra and Emerson looked at books. Soon I felt my little grandson in my lap. We sat in that sweet position for about ten minutes. We rocked gently together until Allegra came for us. Then we went to a secondhand book shop, Books With A Past. I found there Young Torless by Robert Musil, the Austrian writer. We went next to Sleepy Hollow Cemetery. The last stop that afternoon was at the old Manse. Emerson and Allegra took pictures there.

February 7, 1988

My Allegra's birthday.

March 6, 1988

Our Shelley died thirty-three years ago. How have we gone on without her? It has been hard to do so.

March 28, 1988

Emerson's birthday.
Allegra and Emerson looked in the attic for my mother's Larkin desk. They brought it down and cleaned it for Emerson to take home. My mother sold hundreds of dollars' worth of Larkin products to earn that desk when she was a little girl. In the drawer we found the dictionary my great-grandfather, Andrew Knott, had written and given to his son, Obadiah, in 1868. Then we found the letters my father, John Portlock, had written to my mother, Alice Knott, in 1907. The letters are romantic and beautiful. My mother's letters to him are there, too.

June 3, 1990

Entered Saint Anne's Hospital today, Sunday. Surgery for cancer this time—Monday, June 4 at 10:30 A.M. Doctor Philip Smith is my surgeon.

November 28, 1990

It is snowing, the first snow of the winter. The ground seed is covered with snow, and the juncos don't know what to make of it. A squirrel has burrowed his way through the snow to the ground seed.

November 30, 1990

A new bird came to the feeder this morning: the red-bellied woodpecker. He is beautiful with a red cap and a zebra back. His range is from Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to Lake Erie and southeast South Dakota. 
      Light snow has been falling all day.