Hello, dearies!
After reading
so much about
Emily, I've really been tossing the idea of creativity around in my head and heart--almost constantly. And I feel like, maybe, I'm on to something.
A while back, I
posted on my feelings about creating and its uses, both to the creator and the consumer. Well, funnily enough, my readings on Emily Dickinson have provided the vital missing piece for me: there
was no consumer for Emily. She created only and completely for her own fulfillment, actually her own
art, and not for public consumption. More than that, she created to make of her own life, the disparate pieces and limits and boundaries and walls, something totally new, completely unheard of, and radically different from anything that had come before.
More than that, she created something that, albeit unintentional, would strengthen and encourage countless others in her wake.
Now, how can this relate to us? The mother, the wife, the working woman or man, simply trying to get through each day, week, month? Simply trying, with all our might, to hold body and spirit and family together, and to share a bit of our souls with others? How can it possibly relate to us?
Emily was a recluse, a sweet, sweet woman who chose to withdraw from the world in order to focus and nurture her very copious talents. We cannot do the same (though I, for one, would like to on many days!). She lived within very real limits and restrictions, fell in love with a man completely and totally unavailable to her, let him go, and carried him within her broken heart for the rest of her days. She loved deeply and required much of her friends, and as a result was continuously disappointed and even, to some extent, betrayed. Her family was all to her; she sacrificed much to make them happy. But she wrote. She wrote hundreds and hundreds of poems, between the bread rising and the bread baking, and between the dusting and the garden chores. She wrote because by doing so, she took the remnants of her history and created nothing less than a masterpiece, a masterpiece that would nurture and encourage others for centuries to come.
How? In part, she controlled, to a remarkable degree, the visible aspects of her life. She wore only white after her lover moved away. She rarely answered the door, preferring to hide behind the stairwell when visitors came by. She sent poems next door to her beloved sister-in-law, often not seeing her for months at a time. She cared for her aging parents, and refused several marriage proposals. And her heart was broken, deeply and irreversibly broken.
Does any of this sound familiar to you? Do you have a broken heart? Have you aging parents? Do you reach out to others, only to have them dismiss you as sentimental, and even needy? Do you feel alone and without maps, sometimes?
I do. I do, indeed.
And how, then, to turn this to art, in our very own, very daily lives? This, I think, is completely individual to each and every woman or man. We must, as Emily did, find our very own way of making art of our heartbreak. Of our need and our pain. Of our loneliness and frustration. Of our deep and enduring reconciliation with what will never, ever be.
I am forty years old, and I have failed in many ways. I never was the Senate page or social champion I thought I'd be, nor did I graduate from an Ivy League college, as I thought I could and should. I never was the successful lawyer or teacher or lawyer's wife or artist that I hoped I could be. Even as a mother and wife, every day I am confronted with failure. Expected, and even accepted, failure, yes, but failure nonetheless. Too, as a daughter, friend, and sister, I fail daily.
But what of it? Am I not human, am I not trying? Of course! And in this trying is the beauty that we all seek. The beauty that Emily turned into art, and that we, too, try to distill to its essence each and every day. I don't know, and have long wondered, how it will surface in my own life, but I have a new and very faint suspicion that it will show itself not through poetry or painting or any such visual art, but through my daily actions. Acts of compassion, acts of love, acts of acceptance, acts of understanding, acts of release. This will be my legacy, I hope. This is all I have to leave behind for my daughters, my friends, my husband, and this always-hurting, but ever-sweet world.
I'm not there yet, not by any means. But I really am trying, and I know I'm on the right path. I had so much to learn. And I study daily, hoping to find the strength to create what I feel I must.
And you? What will be your masterpiece? Think without limits, and let your heart lead the way. It won't be free of pain or struggle, not even remotely, but it will be worth it. Every single bit. I thank Emily for teaching me this.
Enjoy your week, my sweet friends!
