Let's Find Shelter
BY AMY BAREHAM
Amy Chapman is a freelance writer and content creator for nonprofits. She's especially fond of libraries, London fogs, and to-do lists. Originally from England, Amy now lives with her husband and a very curious toddler in Charlotte, NC. Connect with her on Instagram @the.chapmans.
I met Emily Dickinson every Tuesday during an autumn that smelled like yellow pencils and musty books. We had a standing appointment for 6:00 p.m. I would arrive with coffee and find her waiting in the margins of her poetry. She had a voice so inquisitive, so brave, that I couldn’t help but imagine her in the flesh, perched on the corner of my desk…with a quizzical brow raised in my direction.
The college course was an exploration of Emily Dickinson’s life and work, and our motley crew of English majors poured over her poems, marveling at the way language binds us together.
Some people believe Emily was agoraphobic. Others describe her as an eccentric recluse. Maybe she was just a misunderstood introvert? For a woman who spent much of adulthood indoors, she was pretty switched on to the whims and worries of the human heart. And in these strange days of chaos and catastrophe, I keep returning to my favourite Emily Dickinson quote.
In a letter to a friend, she once said: “I find it shelter to speak to you.”
Every time I read it, my soul breathes a resounding yes. Because isn’t this what we’re all after? Shelter. Relief. Hope.
We are yearning to come in from the rain. We are searching for safe spaces where we can rest and recover. We want to be welcomed – not in the polite way of strangers, but in the warm, reassuring way of family. So how exactly do we build these havens for one another? How do we give comfort that endures when things seem uncertain?
I believe the answer is two-fold: it starts with commitment and leads to acts of service. First, we must choose the quiet, behind-the-scenes work of becoming dependable. In a culture that is constantly hustling and often ghosting, we can dignify the people in our midst by following through and showing up. We can practice being reliable. We can linger for the moments that aren’t Instagram-worthy – the messy seasons of needing help or feeling weak that connect us offline, for good.
When we choose commitment, we slough off the skin of selfishness and put on the mantle of selflessness. We begin looking for opportunities to bring joy to those around us. Emily Dickinson shows us it’s possible (and powerful) to stand by our community even if the world as we know it shuts down. She was housebound, and we were, too, when COVID-19 descended.
Emily was used to absorbing the world from a distance. She knew how to listen, and she was faithful to respond. She was an architect of friendship, crafting shelters with each word she wrote. Her acts of service were her poems and countless letters. What will ours be?
Perhaps: leaving soup by their door when sickness strikes again. Or answering their phone call with our voice, not just a text. Maybe, we could take a page out of Emily’s book and turn to snail mail. After all, letters are tangible expressions of love. They cost us in time, postage, and honesty. It isn’t efficient to communicate like this, but then again, authentic love is rarely convenient. When we tuck our trials and truths within an envelope, we immortalize the fact that you matter, and you are seen.
Because, what it really comes down to, is this: we aren’t meant to walk through life alone. We have a deep and divine longing for relationship, which is why Emily’s thoughts resonate all these years later. The storms that shake us may look different, but we have the same desire to know and be known.
So, should someone knock on the door of vulnerability and whisper, I need to take refuge, can I sit here with you? let them in. What a beautiful legacy it would be to have lived as someone’s shelter.