"Prolific poet and novelist, author of six nonfiction books and heaped with academic honors, Sarton has fashioned her journals, ‘sonatas’ as she calls them, into a distinctive literary form: relaxed yet shapely, a silky weave of reflection, sensuous observation and record of her daily round, with the reader made companion to her inmost thoughts. . . . It’s a book rich in warmth, perceptiveness and reassurance.” —Publishers WeeklyMay Sarton—poet, novelist, and chronicler—occupies a special place in American letters. This new journal chronicles the year that began on May 3, 1982, her seventieth birthday. At her home in Maine, she savors “the experience of being alive in this beautiful place,” reflecting on nature, friends, and work. “Why is it good to be old?” she was asked at one of her lectures. “Because,” she said, “I am more myself than I have ever been.”