Are You An Emily or Robert?

I’m a big nerd. Everyone knows that. I love to read classic literature, reading and analyzing poetry. I love to see how others put their feelings into words. It’s exciting! Last week, I was sitting on my front porch reading an old Lit 101 book from college (yes, I kept it all these years), studying my favorite poet, Emily Dickinson, and came across something I had never noticed before that is still relevant even in today’s society.

Because she is now considered one of the most renowned American poets today, most people do not realized that no one even knew she wrote when she was alive. It wasn’t until after her death, that her poetry was found on scraps of paper in her room and shared with the world. She had this God-given talent that she evidently treasured and valued enough to write down and keep, yet she never had the nerve to show it to anyone. It was enough for her to just keep in tucked away for her eyes only.

Why would anyone hide such a gift? It could have been because she was notoriously shy and reclusive. Coming from a prominent family, Emily was set up to be a socialite, well-groomed and cultured, with a respectable husband, grooming a picture-perfect family. But she never married, and only had a few significant friendships. She lived most of her life at home, in her own imagination, relishing in the simplest beauties of nature. Her writing was not for show. It was just for pure love of the simple life.

Now enter Robert Frost. Robert Frost is just as known and respected as a literary genius as Emily Dickinson. Throughout his lifetime, Robert Frost worked hard fine-tuning his craft , perfecting each rhythm technique, and reaped a multitude of literary awards before his death. He hosted countless public poetry readings, generated a wide following, he taught at the most prestigious universities, and branded himself as the nation’s poet. He was talented and he shared it with everyone.

Two poets, living in two different times, living two very different lives, with two very different styles, each just as talented as the other. Yet, Robert Frost often criticized Emily Dickinson’s poetry in his classes for her lack of technique and ambiguous rhythms. There was a sense of envy and anger towards Dickinson’s lack of care for society’s expectations of what poetry should look like or sound like. While he admitted that she had a talent, he was aggravated by the way she hid it away and her flippant approach to poetry. It’s almost as if the fact that she only wrote for herself was lost on him.

Robert Frost died a decade before I was ever born. But you can still see this same scenario playing out today. We have the hippie, free-spirits (that may be me) that isn’t worried about making the most money, climbing a corporate ladder, or seeking notoriety. We don’t care about the Instagram followers or the number of likes we get on a selfie. We just want to walk around our backyard, smell the flowers, eat a good meal, drink a glass of wine and be happy within the confines of our home. We are the dreamers of the world that find beauty in the simple things.

Then there are the Roberts of society that have an image in their heads of what success looks like. They get up an hour early and dress to look the part. They push to get into the right schools. They push to join the social groups. They live and breath, never taking their eyes off the goal. And they succeed. They bleed victory, failure is not an option. They are the dreamers of the world that find beauty in glory. And that’s perfectly fine too.

This world needs both an Emily and a Robert. It’s the difference in our rhythms that make the most beautiful music. We can each dance to the beat of our own drum. The dance floor is big enough for everyone. It’s when we shame the other’s approach to happiness that causes a skip in the beat. Until we can appreciate each other’s work and contribution to society, until we learn to see the beauty of the remix when we come together, we will never be able to truly appreciate the song of life.

No matter the approach, we all ultimately have the same goal in life- happiness. If we find happiness on our front porch, or speaking before the masses shouldn’t matter. It’s the gift God has promised us that matters. My children are vastly different. God’s children are vastly different too. It’s the difference that makes this world just a little bit spicier!! Be kind. As Emily Dickinson said, “To make a prairie, it takes a clover and one bee.”