Emily And Me And Instructions for the In-Between Times

It’s an important day today, folks, so I had to write. Emily Dickinson’s 193rd birthday!

Photo by Adi Goldstein on Unsplash

I think I was 14 or 15 when I discovered Dickinson’s poetry. I devoured her poems, giggling at their sarcasm, gasping at the brilliant “turns” they often took.

As I’ve grown and come into the territory I write about now—the ways we wrestle with time, worthiness, striving, meaning—I have a new appreciation for her words, so many of which touch on these exact issues.

Like this popular one:

Forever – is composed of Nows –
‘Tis not a different time –
Except for Infiniteness –
And Latitude of Home –

From this – experienced Here –
Remove the Dates – to These –
Let Months dissolve in further Months –
And Years – exhale in Years –

Without Debate – or Pause –
Or Celebrated Days –
No different Our Years would be
From Anno Dominies –

Don’t worry if you got tripped up at the end there. I think she’s just saying that Now is the same as “the year of our Lord”, A.D. 1, which is to come back to her original point. All of time is one thing: Forever is composed of Nows.

All of this time that I am determined to chop up into tiny chunks, that I carefully allocate to this endeavor or that “goal”—it’s all the same in the eyes of eternity. Carving up time into color-coded blocks on my calendar is only ever an illusion, and perhaps even takes me away from the most important truth—the only time we ever have is right now.

The Now is me sitting on this couch typing these words. And the Now is calling out to my kids to have a good day as the car door swings closed at school drop-off. The Now is rinsing the dirty dishes, answering the email, kissing my husband, pouring the coffee, scrolling my phone.

All of these Nows are contained inside the Now that is my entire lifespan captured on a single headstone, and that Now rests inside the Now that will be seen from the future as “America just before the second Trump presidency” or “suburban life in the 21^st Century”.

It’s hard to remember when I’m planning and “problem-solving” and fretting about the future that I’m already living my eternity in whatever moment I’m in Right Now.

Which begs the question of the next, incredibly short poem of hers that I love.

In this short Life that only lasts an hour
How much - how little - is within our power

Yes, that’s the whole poem. Here, read it again.

In this short Life that only lasts an hour
How much - how little - is within our power

This moment of my life is but a brief speck on the pinhead of time. How incredibly awe-some that such of a tiny speck can have a great impact. But also, we have to surrender any idea of controlling Life.

Emily kindly and cleverly reminds us of paradox: Life is always happening to us (or some would say for us), while, at the same time, we get to choose and create our legacies.

What, then, shall we do with our “little” bit of power? One possible answer lies in this poem:

I had no time to Hate—
Because The Grave would hinder Me—
And life was not so
Ample I
Could finish—Enmity

Nor had I time to Love—
But since
Some Industry must be—
The little Toil of Love—
I thought
Be large enough for Me—

Funny, right? I love how she starts off by acknowledging Hate. Like, hello, hate is here, available to us at any moment. Which is true about every other negative emotion—despair, anger, jealousy. In fact, Emily reminds us that there are so many negative feelings we can choose, that if we decided to focus our lives solely on hate, we couldn’t complete the task. Because we’d die before we got to the end of all the hate that’s possible to feel and express!

So, then she considers love, with a most 21^st century mindset—Ain’t nobody got time for that! And when you think about it, it’s true. No human being has enough time to love perfectly and properly. We’re all too caught up in our stories; so many things to do!

Yet, in the end, we’ve must choose something to do with our brief time—"some industry must be.”

The little Toil of Love—
I thought
Be large enough for Me—

This is the thing about Dickinson’s poems that hits me the hardest. She spits Truth without glossing over hard stuff. No toxic positivity or spiritual bypassing here. Yes, life is short and can be rough. (Just read her many poems about grief and death!)

But in the end, we get to choose what we do with this short, hard life we’re given.

Why not skip the hate and opt, instead, for the “little toil of love”? Which might mean that the toil is little—it’s easier than we think. Or that the time is little—so don’t get your grand hopes up, be satisfied with the little you might “accomplish.”

Either way, it’s a lovely reminder to spend your Forever—which is only about an hour’s worth of Nows—choosing love.