I am reading Emily Dickinson's biography and her loneliness (for although she chose to be a recluse, she was very lonely) has affected me strangely. She felt so much and her feelings were neither guarded nor polite enough for public consumption. She loved so much that the people she loved moved away from her; shunned her.
Her heart was broken over and over again. She was rejected and ignored over and over again.
Nice New England girls are supposed to feel just so much and no more. Everything nicely bounded with a border of daffodils, perhaps.
Until, rejected and misunderstood, she shut herself off from the world. Better voluntary exile than to keep being rejected.
And need I say I understood how she felt?
And I wonder if I should shut myself away next year and work and write and read, far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife?
