Sarah McColl

We're spending summer with May Sarton's 1973 Journal of a Solitude, a chronicle of her year living alone in rural New Hampshire and a classic in the literature of diaries.

The Sarton-Solitude framework for this class comes directly from brilliant writer and teacher, Amy Shearn, who is letting me rip it off.

Join us if you:

• long to see your own solitude anew
• need to escape your crowded life into someone else's solitude
• enjoy the company of other minds thinking our best thoughts alongside May Sarton's best thoughts (the magic of reading!)
• like cats, parrots, the excitement of new love, rural life, gardening, and writing about the creative process
• would like to journal once a week to prompts or need a little help to get going
• could use a weekly pause to step out of doing and into reflection

This is from Sarton's first entry:

“On my desk, small pink roses. Strange how often the autumn roses look sad, fade quickly, frost-browned at the edges! But these are lovely, bright, singing pink. On the mantel, in the Japanese jar, two sprays of white lilies, recurved, maroon pollen on the stamens, and a branch of peony leaves turned a strange pinkish-brown. It is an elegant bouquet; shibui, the Japanese would call it. When I am alone the flowers are really seen; I can pay attention to them. They are felt as presences. Without them I would die. Why do I say that? Partly because they change before my eyes. They live and die in a few days; they keep me closely in touch with process, with growth, and also with dying. I am floated on their moments.”

Flowers, writing desks, attention, presence, growth, death! What more could we ask for?

There will be no live class July 15 and 28. Instead, we will write to/with each other collectively in a shared diary, in which I will post excerpts and prompts. Then we will resume live class for the final two weeks.

My goal is to create a potent creative hour in community, half of which is spent silently writing together, that leaves participants feeling more attentive to the details and art of their everyday lives.