Disclaimer: No photos-broken phone/use imagination please :)

Day 4: Emily 

      One important moment of day four was visiting Emily Dickinson’s property where she and her brother, Austin Dickinson lived as neighbors. There we went on a tour of the property, reading poetry in the same home it was written over a century ago. We explored the significance of the details of her house such as the rosy wallpaper in her room and the importance of the windows that let in sunlight around her. Dissimilar to the Edith Wharton’s house and her brother’s, Emily’s house did not contain romantic period paintings but rather bright paintings of people enjoying themselves in accordance with nature. Emily was an individual with tremendous will and strength choosing to live her own way instead of the norm and made an entire generation scratch their heads at her wit. History portrays her as a damaged person, isolated, and alone, but after learning more than what a wiki page offers and walking through her home, I believe most people look at a misconstrued picture of her that emerged as a result of her non-conformity to her time. While Emily did have some issues with her eyesight and ailments, she loved flowers and botany. For choosing nature over social obligations, history omitted that facet of her life and contributed that chunk of her time to the development of her wiki description as an isolated woman. Perhaps we are just ignorant of how we portray people but I history seems unkind to women who stray from the norm, treating them not as eccentric like men but isolated individuals that have sad and tragic lives. From the paintings and wallpaper in her house, it is obvious she was not a cookie cutter but someone who found beauty and company in nature.