12 July 2020: "When he took his hat for the last time that day, he promised the poet he would come again sometime. 'Say in a long time,' she mischievously answered, 'that will be nearer. Some time is nothing.'" --Brenda Wineapple, White Heat
The passage above, from Wineapple's narrative of Higginson and Dickinson's first visit, stood out to me. Dickinson seems keenly aware of how time (and promises about time) often work. In these fraught and strange days where time continues to confound me, I think about some of the last "normal" days, when I told people (students, colleagues, and myself) that we'd see each other again soon without knowing just how long it would be. How could I have been prepared for how "some time" has become "a long time" with no end in sight?
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