The Marks of the Human Heart

I’m a writer. I have theories and favorites. One of my theories is that Emily Dickinson was an agoraphobic, just like me. I have a hard time thinking of agoraphobia as a phobia. I don’t fear the market place. I just prefer being at home.

I like Dickinson’s death-y poems. I’ve been reading and misunderstanding them for decades. In high school English, Mrs. Charlotte McClain, first introduced me to Emily’s work. I developed a theory about her poem, “I heard a fly buzz when I died.” At the time I was reading, Raymond Moody’s "Life after Death."

So, in a two page handwritten essay I presented my (brilliant, I thought)idea about the poem, to Mrs. McClain. I believed the poem was written about a near-death experience. Clearly the poet had clinically died, perhaps a few times. I cross-referenced the poem with Moody’s key elements of the true near death experience.

Charlotte McClain, who also taught Theatre Arts, was a frustrated thespian. And I was a character. In class we’d discuss our pages after reading them aloud. Charlotte’s review of me was scathing. She vehemently disagreed with my hypothesis and spewed against my absurd ideas, accosting me for using Moody’s trendy book to prove out a literary point. I couldn’t understand it. I wasn’t a bad actor, no spitballs here, I thought. My classmates laughed, as if earlier some of them weren’t asking me in the hallway if I would write their next essay. I left the room questioning my sensibilities and ever after my understanding of Dickinson’s work, and the work of others. I began to wonder if Moody’s book really was non-fiction. Mortality came rushing in.

I have a hard time seeing Agoraphobia as a sickness. I think it’s sicker to go to the mall. Some of us have a different worldview. I like white. I have reams of paper marked with words in boxes around the house. I don’t go out. I live in Massachusetts. My writing is not as brilliant as Emily’s I’d venture. But it is certainly as passionate and at times as hard to grasp. This is perhaps not the best combination in my case. I wrote my story, “The Death of Emily,” as a kind of raspberry to Charlotte McClain, may she rest in peace. The story evolved into a re-discovery of my dumb-kid ideas. Sometimes I’m still a dumb kid. Only now, I’m glad about it. I don’t pretend to understand Emily, the quirks we have in common, death, or the survival of it. In fact, I’m sure I understand Emily Dickinson’s work less each day. I’m glad of it. I’m learning about her in reverse. Anyway, that’s my theory.