Recently it has been popular to say that Emily Dickinson gardened at night because for a few years in middle age the sun stung her eyes. I feel certain it was more complicated than that. The woman was a recluse. Her garden was important to her thinking and being out there at night would have given her a chance to think while invisible, not just to the world but also to her family. She stayed away from people so she could be herself and when she was in the garden at night she could be another self, which is, interestingly, Aristotle’s definition of a friend. Something about the night work
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