“Happiness in the ordinary sense is not what one needs in life, though one is right to aim at it. The true satisfaction is to come through and see those whom one loves come through.”
E.M. Forster, letter to Florence Barger, February 11, 1922
“I watched the tail end of Master and Commander after I got home from a dinner party in Washington Heights last night, then read myself to sleep with the last chapter of David Herbert Donald’s Lincoln. That, I regret to say, was that. Outside of a late-morning session at the gym, Tuesday went up in the smoke of a freelancer’s chores and an afternoon nap. I didn’t have time–or, rather, I didn’t make time–to experience any art, save for the Chopin nocturnes and Mozart arias playing in the background at the dinner party. Not only did I see no plays or ballets, but I didn’t listen to any music, nor did I read any new Isaac Bashevis Singer stories in between returning phone calls, answering e-mail, and fussing with my schedule. I wouldn’t say it was a wasted day, but neither can I say that I stopped very often or smelled many roses…”
It’s no secret, since I haven’t made it one here or elsewhere, that I’ve been having a rocky time of it for the past month. Grief maintains its own inexorable schedule without reference to the grieving person’s wants or needs, and the fact that I’ve been forced by the pandemic to mourn my beloved Hilary in total solitude has been—to put it mildly—taking its psychic toll.
The good news is that I continue to be able to work: I have yet to miss a Wall Street Journal or Commentary deadline since Hilary’s death, and I have an essay coming out in the June issue of Commentary in which I speak at length about our marriage and pay tribute to her special qualities, both as a woman and as a life’s companion. I can’t exactly say that the piece was a comfort to write, but it was definitely necessary, and I hope I captured something of her in what I wrote.
As for the rest, I am fortunate to be in the case of a psychiatrist who figured out early on that I was having serious trouble with insomnia and did something about it. No matter how hard the day has been, I know at its end that I will sleep deeply and well. And in between? All I could do at first was work and watch movies, but now I’m reading again—I’m working my way through Barbara Pym’s novels for the first time in years—and I am, first and foremost, staying in touch with the close friends who are collectively pulling me through the long, hard process of coming to terms with the death of a spouse.
To all of you who’ve expressed concern, you’re right to do so, but fear not: I’m being looked after, and I seem to be able to maintain enough altitude to stay above the trees. That’s all I can hope for at present, but it’s working, and I am, if not exactly content, coping.
A rare 1953 promotional film for the Hollywood String Quartet, a group led by Felix Slatkin (Leonard Slatkin’s father) and comprised of the first-chair string players of Hollywood’s film-studio orchestras. The purpose of the film was to sell a regular program of chamber music to TV stations. The program was never produced:
(This is the latest in a series of arts- and history-related videos that appear in this space each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday)
