Emily Dickinson - Common Person, Common Emotions

Emily Dickinson, although often thought of as depressing and dark, struck me as reflective and relatable. If I told my classmates from AP English in high school that I was relating to Emily Dickinson, they would be seriously concerned. When I was first exposed to her poetry in that class, I disliked it and agreed with much of the population that thought it depressing. Now after reading her work more extensively as a mature adult (this could be debatable at times) I understand the emotions that she conveys through her work and love the reflection on life that she uses in many of her poems.

In my life I have lost two people that were close to me, but both were expected and I was able to say goodbye before they passed. My heart aches for the families who had no prior warning and were not able to say goodbye to their loved ones. A few weeks ago, a friend of my cousin died in a car accident. He was 17 and was killed instantly. None of his family and friends were able to say goodbye to him and Emily Dickinson’s poem “I meant to find her when I came” really reflects on similar stories.

I meant to find her when I came;

Death had the same design;

But the success was his, it seems,

And the discomfit mine.

I meant to tell her how I longed

For just this single time;

But Death had told her so the first,

And she had hearkened him.

To wander now is my abode;

To rest, –to rest would be

A privilege of hurricane

To memory and me.

Just recently I found out that my friend’s dad is going to die from cancer. He has battled with it for years but is in the hospital for what they are pretty positive will be the last time. My friend lives in Florida while her family is in Wisconsin and I am praying that she can make it in time to say goodbye. This poem also speaks of death in the manner of not getting to the death bed in time to say “I love you” one last time. “I meant to find her when I came; Death had the same design.” This line truly reflects the nature of death. The time is uncertain and we cannot change that. We can hope and pray and the person can try to hang on, but death will come when God decides. Emily Dickinson’s wording and the analogy of a race with death toward a loved one is so powerful. When we lose a loved one we always wish for one last moment with them – time enough to make one more memory to hold onto.

When I read the last stanza of this poem, I had no idea what Emily Dickinson was referring to when she said “to rest would be a privilege of hurricane to memory and me.” After discussing it with a Philosophy major and an English major, we decided that just as a hurricane has to keep moving in order to exist, the narrator says that wandering is his home. To a hurricane, resting would be a privilege because it is something that a hurricane is unable to do. The narrator compares his life to a hurricane because if he stops wandering, he will become filled with the memory of his deceased loved one and the memory that he was not able to say goodbye. Now that I understand this metaphor, I can understand what Emily Dickinson was trying to say. A person that loses a loved one is often so overcome with the sadness of losing them and regret if they were unable to say goodbye. If a person keeps moving by making a career one’s life or becoming so absorbed in a social life that person can keep the sadness and regret at bay and avoid the memories that he or she would have if they had stopped and really grieved like one should.

Reading Emily Dickinson has been so refreshing. Raw emotion and her love of nature captured my attention in every poem. Although Emily Dickinson was a recluse and didn’t experience as much in life as say, Walt Whitman, the experiences that she had were relatable to a normal life. Everyone in the world can relate to the emotions associated with death and suffering. Dickinson is a common person with common feelings but her work is absolutely amazing.