If you like to dream about the lives of others, and would like a little help today, then go over to Burningbird and read her essay on Emily Dickinson, Me and Emily: Sweet Whispers of the Betrayer. The only disappointment is that it ends.
Not so long ago, I was thinking of Emily myself. I was thinking of a lot of things actually, as I sat in front of a warm fire and tried to chase away the particular mood that seemed to have settled in that day. And I remember writing a letter to a friend . . .
I am having a hard time beginning this letter tonight. It has nothing to do with imaginary worlds or the imaginary people waiting their turn to be born. I’m not even sure what it’s about, which must be the reason for the slow beginning. It is a melancholy night, which would seem to produce a melancholy letter. We will see. I have lit a strong, warm fire whose sole job is to warm my cold toes. But if my spirits are also warmed in the process, so much the better.
I will tell you that I am enjoying my time spent here doing nothing more then thinking thoughts about things nonexistent. If nothing else, that makes me happy. And my oldest friend, the idea of writing, is with me still, keeping me company in spite of my mood. A steadfast friend, to stick with me this many years.
This morning I found myself imagining the concept of writing (and I guess I refer to fiction) to be a little bit like the concept of law. An incorporeal thing that you imagine and try to get your hands around. Good writing like good law, in that when you see it, and feel it, and experience it, you know when it’s right. Good writing, like good law, that you can embrace and hope that it works. This is the kind of writing that I hope to accomplish, so I will suffer the consequences when my own words fall short, and change them when I can. It is the beauty of having an idea as a friend.
But I like that I have stumbled onto the word incorporeal tonight. It’s a good word. There certainly seems nothing tangible about writing, just as there seems nothing tangible about law. They are ideas embraced, nothing more, their difference seeming to rest in the fact that while one is clear and demanding, the other is vague and full of suggestion. But don’t ask me which one is which, because I would be hard pressed to know the answer. Instead, ask me what I do each day, and I will know that I climb out of bed and can think of nothing else but wrapping my fingers around an incorporeal ladder of imagination. I climb and I climb. I keep my eyes and my ears closed tightly, so that I don’t have to see the stack of bills on my desk or the sound of the phone ringing endlessly. I climb because it is a feeling like no other, a dizzying feeling to reach such heights of thought and find yourself hanging onto nothing. Because words are nothing, and yet we’re forced to hang everything on their meaning.
Maybe that’s why I am melancholy tonight. Not because I’m having trouble starting a letter, but because I climb an impossible ladder. Not because I search for words, but because I find too many. Maybe I’ve caught a glimpse of my own self, standing there at the base of the ladder, dreaming.
But what am I dreaming about, standing there, looking around at nothing? I know that last night I found myself thinking about Emily Dickinson, wondering about her and her life. What could it have possibly been like, to be her? What did she see when she looked around, so intense but so alone? I couldn’t help but wonder how much of her anyone really knew. I imagined her moving about a room, exchanging pleasantries and offering only the smallest bits of herself. I imagined a woman who could write over 1700 poems, yet see only seven of them published. I imagined the lifetime of thoughts that moved through her head turning into words but shared so little. And I imagined her sitting down, as she often did, to write a letter. Much the same way I sit here and write to you tonight.
Emily Dickinson, if you didn’t know, wrote hundreds of letters in her lifetime. You could read them yourself and decide what she was writing about, but I like to imagine that she wrote her letters because she searched for something. In my imagination, Emily looked for someone who could open their eyes and see life the way she saw it. I’m most likely wrong, but enjoy the thought. She once wrote to a man at the Atlantic Monthly named Thomas Wentworth Higginson. The two kept in contact for years, exchanging letters and meeting upon occasion. Once, when he asked her what she looked like, Emily Dickinsons wrote back
I . . . am small, like the wren; and my hair is bold, like the chestnut burr; and my eyes, like the sherry in the glass that the guest leaves.
I wonder what Higginson thought, getting such a letter. How could he not be intrigued? When Dickinson and Higginson finally met for the first time one night at her father’s home, it would be only after having shared years of exchanging letters. Following the meeting, Higginson would later write:
I never was with any one who drained my nerve power so much. Without touching her, she drew from me. I am glad not to live near her.
What was it about Emily Dickinson that proved so draining to Higginson? I can only imagine that the years of letter writing between the two had led Emily to believe that she could show a bit of her true self to the visiting Higginson. I imagine she felt safe and more open then usual. I imagine that the meeting, to her, was like a letter coming to life, words falling into place, a poem unfolding. I imagine she thought she would meet Higginson and share with him a glimpse of her world.
The only shame here is that Higginson, given such an opportunity, was not up to the task. Can you imagine the world all around Dickinson, drawn into her hungry eyes, distilled of its perceptions and dressings, then offered back to those who dared? Her own friend, Higginson, even after years of letter exchanges with Emily, had no stomach for the life that Dickinson saw. Maybe there was simply not enough life within him to withstand her? Who knows. What I do know is that he is not the first person to avoid facing such a vision of life. Nor will he be the last.
And thinking that, I began to wonder if there were any Emily Dickinson’s alive today. Would I ever meet one, and if I did, would I even know? Would I be able to look into those eyes and know her for who she is? Would I be able to meet such a gaze? What would such a person draw from me? I do know that, unlike Thomas Wentworth Higginson, I would have loved to live near such a person.