Emily & me

It all began in a rather mystical way over thirty years ago.

I had been teaching junior high school English for the first third of my career and had finally gotten ready to start on a master’s degree.  I loved being in the classroom with kids and knew I didn’t want to spend time working on a principal’s certificate, though I think some folks thought I might make a good one.  

My assistant principal at the time, Darlene Duchene, called my attention to a survey she had recently received from the University of Dayton querying interest in a new graduate degree in the humanities they were considering.  She thought such an eclectic focus was tailor-made for me.  Oddly enough, as it turned out, equally local Wright State University rolled out their Master of Humanities degree that upcoming fall (1980) and I am proud to tell you I was accepted into that initial flight of scholars embarking on a new kind of liberal arts graduate degree that, at least in my case, changed the course of my life.   

Over the next two quarters I taught kids all day, read a brain-choking number of books designed to give me balanced background in the humanities evenings and weekends, attended a twice-weekly introduction course at night, and wrote two lengthy papers in the process, one on naturalist John Muir and the other on photographer Ansel Adams.  From that point on I was to design a collection of interdepartmental courses that would make me, well, a master of some aspect of humanities that motivated me.  Seemed to me I was heading in some environmental direction.  About that time I dubbed myself a liberal arts environmentalist.  

So it was a bit puzzling when my favorite English department professor suggested I take his upcoming workshop on Emily Dickinson.  I questioned what she had to do with environmental interests.  Mr. Hughes just shook his head, took on a wistful look, and said, ‘Oh, she’s connected to all kinds of things.‘  

And so it was.  

In that spring workshop we talked for hours about Emily’s mysterious life and her canon of work while reading Richard B. Sewall’s new-to-paperback, The Life of Emily Dickinson, while having the full Thomas H. Johnson 1960 collection at hand, The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson.  I don’t remember much about what I wrote in that course, but I recall a series of photographs I developed in my home darkroom of some Woodland Cemetery monuments, tying them to some dark, brooding verse of Emily’s. 

I’ve read about how living on an island, even for a time, can change the way a person perceives life.  I must say I feel the same way about having studied Emily Dickinson.  For me, knowing more about that elusive Belle of Amherst has colored how I look at family, friends, Nature, and the essence of the universe.    

Still, Emily remains a mystery to me, though I feel that I know her pretty well.  It feels something like having her as a girlfriend:  I’m pretty sure I know her, but every once in a while an unexpected behavior -- or poem, or letter -- shows up that kind of baffles me.  

Truly, no one knows all we’d like to know about Emily Dickinson.  She will forever remain an ethereal character in American literature.  And in that is a beauty worthy of remembering on this December 10, Emily Dickinson’s 182nd birthday.

Oh, and that analogy to living on an island changing your life a couple paragraphs above?  I could tell you stories....  

For more on Emily’s Boys collection of original poetry, see http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/441926 . 

Emily’s Boys are James M. Hughes, D. F. Dominic, A. Bergeron, and Tom Schaefer.

Today’s elder idea:   That Love is all there is / Is all we know of Love...

Emily Dickinson

Cindy Lou and I proudly bear ‘LOVE IS ALL’ etched into our wedding bands.  Next week marks our 20th wedding anniversary. 

images  

top:  Emily Dickinson’s headstone, photographed by me October 2006.

below:  Letters to the World cover, featuring Emily’s headstone shot by me summer 1981.