How Emily Dickinson (and a Friend’s Blog) Saved My Morning

I’ll just begin by telling you a certain child in my family vomits seven times last night.  This is the other child (not the one with the entirely different virus). 

I don’t actually wake up this morning because I never actually went to bed. 

Everyone complains.  Everyone feels miserable, and to make matters worse, it’s a holiday!  We’ll miss the bike parade, the hot dogs, the fireworks–everything. 

Then I check my email, and a new friend sends me a link to her blog.  She’s entitled it “Dwell in Possibility.”  I think about the phrase all morning because it resonates deeply.  I’ve heard the phrase before–from some distant place–that recalls a beautiful hoping in me. 

Then I remember.  It’s from Emily Dickinson.  I love Emily Dickinson. 

I dwell in Possibility —
A fairer House than Prose —
More numerous of Windows —
Superior — for Doors —

Of Chambers as the Cedars —
Impregnable of Eye —
And for an Everlasting Roof
The Gambrels of the Sky —

Of Visitors — the fairest —
For Occupation — This —
The spreading wide of narrow Hands
To gather Paradise —

I read the poem again and again.  Today, I choose to gather Paradise.

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Journal:  What are the possibilities of this day?  Who could even name them all?