January 1920 – The day after my birthday in fact I’m 38. Well, I’ve no doubt I’m a great deal happier than I was at 28; and happier today than I was yesterday.
Virginia’s first novel, The Voyage Out, was published when she was 33. Mrs.Dalloway, arguably her first real masterpiece, was published when she was 43, and she produced most of her best work in her forties. In a time when we’re expected to find creative success quickly, and when it’s easy to compare ourselves with those who have been successful at a young age, I find Virginia’s path incredibly comforting. As she indicates here, she was not only more creatively successful but happier in her thirties and beyond.
November 1921 – Death, at least must seem to be there, visible, expectant. One ought to work – never to take one’s eyes from one’s work; and then if death should interrupt, well, it is merely that one must get up and leave one’s stitching – one won’t have wasted a thought on death.
Like most of us, Virginia’s thoughts about mortality fluctuated significantly depending on her mood, her mental state, and her circumstances. One continued thread, however, is that she felt most content when she was able to focus on her work, to live in the present, and to revel in the simple pleasures of her daily routine.
August 1922 – There’s no doubt in my mind that I have found out how to begin (at 40) to say something in my own voice; and that interests me so that I feel I can go ahead without praise.
October 1922 – At forty I am beginning to learn the mechanism of my own brain – how to get the greatest amount of pleasure and work out of it. The secret is I think always so to contrive that work is pleasant.
Virginia’s creative success in her forties and beyond was in no small part, she seems to tell us, because she had spent more time inside her own head. She understood how to convert her thoughts into words. She understood what made her writing strong and how she could make it stronger. She understood how to make her work pleasurable.
It seems to me that there are no shortcuts to reaching this stage – there weren’t any for Virginia. In other words, her route to creative success was both as simple and as complex as it could possibly be: she just let the work, and time, accumulate.
July 1925 – But I don’t think of the future, or the past, I feast on the moment. This is the secret to happiness, but only reached now in middle age.
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Acorn, Yoko Ono
The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald (reread)
Feel Free, Zadie Smith
Orlando, Virginia Woolf
Bone, Jeff Smith (reread)
Wedding Toasts I’ll Never Give, Ada Calhoun
This Lullaby, Sarah Dessen