The Old Fashioned House

        Once tasked to relate it to the story of First Man, it doesn't take much detective work to figure out the allegory within Dickinson's poem for Eve and Adam's departure from Eden. The two of them "saunter" away from the offered paradise of the garden (which is the "old-fashioned house") in the ignorance of their disobedience against God. Only once they commit the act and reject the rules, they come into a new form of self-awareness. Now the bliss of ignorance of Good and Evil is gone, only to be replaced by shame and sorrow. Even as they stand their among the trees of Eden, the garden is lost to them.

          The poem tells the story of people leaving and old-fashioned house that they had lived in all their lives, sauntering from the door smugly and unconscious of the fact that they would ever return. Dickinson uses the words old-fashioned specifically to show how their dwelling place is an ancient home full of wisdom but seen as outdated by the newest generation. Because when you see the time-worn form of a dial up rotary phone sitting in your attic, the first thing you think of is not how much this telephone has been through, not what conversations it has channeled through its wiring, but that it is outdated. Old-fashioned.

        Nothing much demonstrates the struggle of Adam and Eve within the garden so simply yet so well. This comparison better illustrates how the story shows the human struggle within all of us than a simple breakdown of the story by word because of how much we can relate to it. Emily Dickinson says that all of us are echoing the sin of Adam and Eve in our lives by doing something that is considered a rite of passage for many entering adulthood. The leaving behind of home, but also the leaving behind of other things that we do not account for: what home represents.

        Many of us here down in the mud of earth wonder about the mysteries of life, and one of the biggest questions asked, one of the most perplexing yet oddly beautiful questions, is one that was best phrased by the character Andy Bernard from the TV show "The Office". In the show's finale, when all of the show's characters are finally parting ways after so many years in the same workspace, it is a moment of nostalgia for both the people on the screen and those that watch it. All of the characters are about to depart for the last time, when Andy asks the camera (which was recording a documentary): "I wish there was a way to know you're in the good old days before you've actually left them." The feeling of nostalgia here resonated with everyone watching, even if you haven't watched the show before, because of how much people ask that question subconsciously in their head. I predict I will be asking that question myself once my senior year comes to a close, and like those characters in The Office, I will be parting ways with people I have known for countless years for a new future. Parting with my friends at school. Parting with my family at home.

        The yearning for what was left behind in the past grips us all. Adam and Eve yearned for the paradise of innocence and ignorance. Those in Emily Dickinson's poem yearned for their times in that old-fashioned house before they moved away. I will yearn for the bliss of my time in high school like I now yearn for the bliss of my time in middle school and elementary school. I will yearn for all the time I spent with my family as a kid. The memories. Just like in the poem I will drive away from my own old-fashioned house to a life at college, though I am determined to not saunter from the door unconscious of my return. But I fear that however I feel when I leave will not change what I will see when I return.

        Life is change. Nothing in our universe remains stagnant, as not only entropy demonstrates through science but our own human experiences demonstrate as well. I know that I will return to my home to see faces of strangers. I remember a few years ago I left home to stay with family friends for a few weeks in Texas. I had a great time, but when I returned to JFK Airport the face of my father waiting for me there shocked me. It wasn't that I didn't remember what he looked like, only that in the few weeks that had gone b the permanent image and voice that I had for him in my brain had deteriorated. Years going by make me fear even more for how I will see my family on my return. My home will seem smaller and strange. The yard will look alien. My own dog will make me flinch. Until I get used to their faces again they will look like strangers.

        But that is not the worst of what I will find. The worst by far of what I will see is what happens to everyone who I knew from school. My family with the exception of my sister will not go anywhere. I know where they stand in life. They have gone through the gauntlet and came out on the other side, and have settled in safety and security. I will be keeping an eye out for my sister in whatever she chooses to do in life, and do my best to make sure she comes out alright too. But as for everyone I have known in these years? I shudder thinking about what I might find. 

        It isn't the first years after my departure that I fear, but what will happen as time wears on. Not everyone I know will fare well in the world beyond high school. I will hear names I know be destroyed by the horrors and harms that life gives. I will hear names I know be sent into the gutter. Future ruined. I recently viewed a video on YouTube of a judge in Florida who found herself facing someone she used to be friends with in middle school across from her as a defendant. The man was being sentenced for 5 years in prison for robbery and other accounts, and as soon as he recognized her he broke down into tears. He realized how far down the drain he had sent himself. When I return to the shadow of a long-lost paradise, my greatest fear is hearing the names of those with whom I shared laughs with even once like how that judge in Florida had heard the name of the nicest kid in middle school. Or worse.

    Not everyone from my past will come out through the gauntlet all right. That is what sends fear into me every time I think about it.