I’m reading Barbara Pym’s autobiography, A Very Private Eye. Well, it’s not really an autobiography, that is it is a compilation of letters and diary entries compiled chronologically by her sister and friend. A letter she wrote in February 1939 speaks of her happiness. She is living in rooms in London with her sister Hilary and she is writing a novel. She is twenty-five. I have known such times, that kind of happiness. It a quiet thing generally, and not usually associated with being in love, that is too topsy-turvy. No, that kind of happiness, that I think she is referring to is a domestic, settled one. How prescient that those words were written just before the outbreak of war. I too feel moments of contentment now, yes there is a world in chaos all about me and those moments are fleeting (and I am full of fear about my work, my practice and not being good enough and my hips hurt) but I do feel it. I do.
