It's Been Awhile Since Posting on Emily Dickinson...and Ultrarunning

Once I had a loved one who became lost...desperately, dangerously, life-threateningly lost.

I could do nothing, except keep my fingers crossed, and hope.  I wore a white wristband in those dark days, on which were inscribed the words "Faith, "Hope," and "Love."

I wasn't much into Faith in those days, nor did Love seem to be doing the trick.  Thus my favorite was "Hope."

So when I found this Emily Dickinson poem, I printed it out and attached it to a plastic six-pack can holder, and taped it to my desk where I would see it many times each and every day.

See, when this loved one was in elementary school, one of the things he/she learned was how plastic waste--like six-pack holders--were polluting the ocean and killing seagulls and turtles.  We had to judiciously snip each of the six compartments with a scissors so if that piece of plastic somehow made it to the ocean, it would not get wrapped around a critter's neck and pose a threat to sea life.

In those dark days I longed for a return to the time when the principal problem of my loved one was plastic waste, not a life-threatening dark monster that was about to engulf him/her.

So I became--and remain still--a proponent of Hope.  With a capital H.  Here is the entire poem:

“Hope” is the thing with feathers - 

That perches in the soul - 

And sings the tune without the words - 

And never stops - at all - 

And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard - 

And sore must be the storm - 

That could abash the little Bird 

That kept so many warm - 

I’ve heard it in the chillest land - 

And on the strangest Sea - 

Yet - never - in Extremity, 

It asked a crumb - of me.

Hope must have worked...my loved one has now been a whole human being again for several years, and so will remain for the rest of their life.  

Ultrarunning, by contrast, is an optional leisure pastime with no obvious life-threatening implications.  Indeed, the connection to Ultrarunning seems superfluous and trivial, but represents the hope we all have of the next run or the next race being somehow magical or mystical, and far surpassing all hopes and expectations.    

As we head into the new year, may all your loved ones be safe and all your runs magical.

Emily Dickinson and War, in Seven Words

I do some research and writing on the American Civil War, and a couple years ago in my reading I came across a reference to a quote attributed to the poet Emily Dickinson...something about immortality or death "striking sharp and early."
 

Ms. Dickinson lived during and after the time of that war. Turns out the quote in question was, surprisingly, not in a poem, but rather in one of her letters to a literary friend, Thomas Higginson, who was then serving in the Union army.  With the country waking up to the dawning realization that the American Civil War was an event of catastrophic proportions, Ms. Dickinson was concerned for her friend.  In an 1862 letter, she writes:
 

Perhaps death gave me awe for friends, striking sharp and early, for I held them since in a brittle love, of more alarm than peace. I trust you may pass the limit of war; and though not reared to prayer, when service is had in church for our arms, I include yourself.

And then this gem, in the same letter, which in seven words may come closer to the meaning of war than any other words in the English language:

 

War feels to me an oblique place.

 

 

Ms. Dickinson's short sentence seems to imply a number of thoughts: dismay, helplessness, quiet anger, unfamiliarity or indirectness.  I sense she felt a lack of understanding of the forces that could bring otherwise sentient human beings to that dark place.

Fast forward some 150 years.  So now death has struck, sharp and early, in that oblique place, for some 4,423 U.S. personnel in Iraq, and for some 2,285--and counting--U.S. personnel in Afghanistan (DOD official casualty data, here).

And even as the conflict in Afghanistan chugs on, seemingly undirected and self-propelled, winding down yet suspiciously permanent, the saber-rattling continues for military intervention in Iran...from many of the same Very Serious People who were responsible for the wars of the 2000s.  Far from being shamed and discredited, they continue, inexplicably, to hold court and are still looked to as elder statesmen. 

They should heed the uneasy words of Ms. Dickinson.

War feels to me an oblique place.

A place to which we must not venture.

They're Back!

The house wrens, that is.  Here's what I posted three years ago at the blessed event.

Emily Dickinson had it exactly right when she wrote some 150 years ago:

“I hope you love birds too. It is economical. It saves going to heaven.” 

++++++++++++++++

Friday, April 23, 2010

Pappy's License Plate

I built this wren house from old chestnut boards from my grandfather-in-law's farm, and used his 1958 Pennsylvania license plate as the roof. (photo by Gary)


The house wrens (Troglodytes aedon) should be arriving any day now from their winter stay. They are a critter of edges, so I will encounter them along my typical rural road runs, along the C+O Canal, but not usually along the Appalachian Trail. They are not a deep woods critter.

One of the reasons I love this tiny dynamo of feathers is that the males and the females are indistinguishable from one another, and share nest duties equally. And can they ever sing—a sweet, melodic burst of sound that seems too large to come from this tiny little bird. My Audubon Society field guide calls it “…a gurgling, bubbling, exuberant song….”

The bride and I eagerly await this time of year, to see who will be the first to say, "The wrens are back." Then we know that the earth, and us upon it, have sucessfully turned another year.

[Photo credit here]

 

 

Emily Dickinson....and Ultrarunning

That's Emily Dickinson, mysterious and reclusive poet in the middle 1800s, who, I am convinced, had the soul of an Ultrarunner and may have become one of us had she lived now.

Why do I say that?  Because she understood all the right things:

“I hope you love birds too. It is economical. It saves going to heaven.” 

“Dying is a wild night and a new road.” 

“Whenever a thing is done for the first time, it releases a little demon.” 

“I hope your rambles have been sweet, and your reveries spacious” 

“The only Commandment I ever obeyed — 'Consider the Lilies.'” 

“Forgive me if I never visit. I am from the fields, you know, and while quite at home with the dandelions, make a sorry figure in a drawing room.” 

 “I believe in possibility.” 

 

From goodreads, here.  The first quote is my favorite of the bunch, far and away.

 

 

More Emily Dickinson and Ultrarunning

Last week (10 Dec 1830) was the birthday of Emily Dickinson, the famous New England poet of the mid 1800s.
The Writer's Almanac noted this date.  Ms. Dickinson seemed rather normal until she was a young adult, then seemingly became more and more closeted and reclusive, eventually scarcely venturing from her home at all.

Over the years, scholars have done a lot of speculating about Dickinson, coming up with all sorts of theories. Last year, a biographer named Lyndall Gordon suggested that Dickinson was epileptic, and that her epilepsy explained her seclusion, the rhythm and content of her poetry, and even her famous white dress, which according to Gordon was white for sanitary reasons. Various critics have tried to prove that her seclusion was the result of a broken heart, and have offered up any number of men in her life as the possible heartbreaker. A few years ago, a scholar named Carol Damon Andrews published an article claiming that Dickinson was engaged to her brother's friend George Gould, but that her father broke it up because Gould was too poor, and that Dickinson's love poems are written to Gould. There is also the popular theory that she was a closeted lesbian, possibly in love with her sister-in-law, Susan. Other scholars have diagnosed Dickinson with SAD, seasonal affective disorder.

Many people think that there is no one answer for Dickinson's seclusion — but that above all, she was driven by a fierce desire to write poetry, and she chose to sacrifice everything else for that. Allen Tate said: "All pity for Miss Dickinson's 'starved life' is misdirected. Her life was one of the richest and deepest ever lived on this continent."

I've blogged about her before, here, but I continue to imagine what it would be like to see the natural world through her eyes, wondering what she might make of trail running, and the physical and mental boundaries that it expands. 

Her attention to the details of nature--plants, animals, inanimate objects--as revealed in her poetry is quite remarkable.  She certainly knew the motivating forces that compel many of us to head to and love the backcountry.

 

“War to me is an Oblique Place"…and Ultrarunning

Nearly two years ago I did a post on Emily Dickinson and how she, in 7 words, in a marvelous use of spare language, managed to sum up the meaning of war.

Not much has changed since I wrote that post in 2010, nor since she wrote her letter to a friend some 140 years ago, puzzled, saying "War to me is an oblique place." 

War still is an oblique place, and we keep going there.  Violence seems to be the first resort and not the last one.  I think it’s because we are armed to the teeth, and when all you have is a hammer, everything begins to look like a nail.  Our military budget is equal to about half of the world’s military expenditures. Put another way, we spend around $700 billion annually on our military, plus or minus…and so does the rest of the world put together.

So when the Very Serious People who run this country say that we can’t afford Medicare or Social Security, what they really mean is that those programs get the crumbs from the table after we’ve fed the military.

See here, here and here for some representative data sources.

Oh, and the link to Ultrarunning?

When I’m running on a trail, the world gets small.  It’s me—the body aspect consisting of my heart, lungs and legs—but mostly my mind, just savoring the solitude.  I don’t wish to dominate the trail or anything I see.  I don’t care to fight with any creatures, great or small.  I have no desire to compete for resources, or deny anything to anybody.

All I wish is to be left alone in the pursuit of happiness.

 

Emily Dickinson and Hope

Once when my soul and psyche were quite low, I came across a wondrous Emily Dickinson poem that truly resonated with me.  I've previously posted on Ms. Dickinson and Ulrarunning.

Photo credit to http://www.findagrave.com/

I don't want to reveal too much of a private matter here, but suffice it to say that a loved one was in trouble, deep, life-threatening trouble. I was powerless to help, except for moral support, since the problem's cause and its cure were entirely in the loved one's hands and no one else's.

I could not and would not pray, but I could hope, and Ms. Dickinson's poem, Hope, gave voice to that yearning, and truly sustained me through that dry season.

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all. 

 

Emily Dickinson and UltraRunning

Adding to a previous Emily Dickinson post, you should go to this site, now, and take the time to scroll through all the pages.


Our society seems preoccupied with the dangers that one might encounter outdoors.  Perhaps that's one of the reasons I am drawn to ultrarunning, because in our world it is quite unremarkable to run alone in the backcountry, or to run at night.  So imagine my joy at finding this wondrous word image (on pg 6):

When much in the woods, as a little girl, I was told that the snake would bite me, that I might pick a poisonous flower, or goblins kidnap me; but I went along and met no one but angels, who were far shyer of me than I could be of them, so I haven't that confidence in fraud which many exercise.

Many imagine Ms. Dickinson as being a fragile waif, living indoors in a world of words.  I imagine her as an ultrarunner.

As I've said before, time to get cracking on my Ms. Dickinson reading.  There are undoubtedly more delightful treasures to be found....

(Photo from http://www.unc.edu/~gura/dickinson/index.html )

Emily Dickinson and War, in 7 Words

In my American Civil War reading (I do some research and writing in this area) I came across a reference to an Emily Dickinson quote...something about immortality or death "striking sharp and early." She lived and wrote during and after the time of that war. 

To track this down, naturally I did a Google search, whereby I encountered the site Early Women Masters , which contains the quote I was seeking.  The quote was, surprisingly, not in a poem but rather in one of her letters to a literary friend, who was then serving in the Union army.  The full quote reads:

Perhaps death gave me awe for friends, striking sharp and early, for I held them since in a brittle love, of more alarm than peace.

And then this, later in the same letter, which in 7 words may come closer to the meaning of war than any other 7 words in the English langauge:

War feels to me an oblique place.

So now death has struck, sharp and early, in that oblique place, for some 4377 US personnel in Iraq, and for some 977 US personnel in Afghanistan.

Now I must read 1) a bio of Ms. Dickinson, 2) her published works, and 3) her letters, which appear to have been separately published by various recipients.  So much to read and so little time....

Photos from http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=282