The Sea Gulls Woke Me is the title of a young adult novel by Mary Stolz I read when I was around 15. It's a coming-of-age tale about a girl who spends a transformative summer in a seacoast town in, if I recall correctly, Maine. The title came to me as I woke the first morning in Amherst to the sound of an unfamiliar bird call, a single strong note insistent in its demand for attention. I did not know then, as I do (or am beginning to understand) now as I write this on August 14, that I was waking to the beginning of a transformative experience.

At home I usually can't sleep with the windows open. We have central air conditioning in the house, and most summer nights are so sticky and the air so laden with pollen (and the neighbors' air conditioning unit so noisy) that it's better for sleeping and for breathing if the windows remain closed.

Chapman House is not air conditioned, and the windows open readily. (In fact, they don't really close very tightly. I imagine this makes managing an eastern Massachusetts winter a challenge.) My room had two windows across the front and one on the side. The night was pleasant, so I left the windows open.

Sleeping, too, was pleasant, although the floor of the room was so uneven that I had to move the bed (at right) around until I found a spot somewhere near the center where it wouldn't wobble every time I moved. Even so, I had the sensation as I lay in bed that I was working against gravity to keep myself from rolling off. I learned in the morning that only one other person was staying at Chapman. The others, disheartened by the accommodations, had moved to the University Motor Lodge. 

So I woke around seven to the call of a strange bird and the sound of traffic beginning to build. Chapman lies along South Pleasant Street, about a half mile from the town center. I passed the early morning with my usual C&C (coffee and contemplation), some writing, and a long conversation with Lois, the woman in the room across the hall. Seventeen years ago she lost a sixteen-year-old daughter in a car accident. She had two younger children, and she works now with an organization she established to help bereaved siblings through their grieving process. She's working on a project to compile a book of meditations on death and grieving from the words of Emily Dickinson.

I went downtown about 9:30. Keep in mind that I am a middle-aged suburbanite with a checkered orthopedic past (two back operations, right leg broken twice, a knee surgery) who is accustomed to parking right in front of every place I want to visit. There are days when even a twenty-minute stroll around my neighborhood seems a daunting task. On this morning, however, I donned snazzy new Easy Spirit walking sandals, packed my day's needs into a purple Lands' End backpack marked "Lynn" (also seen in photo above), and set off on foot.

My first stop was the Jeffery (that's how you spell it) Amherst Book Shop for the obligatory $100 book binge. Conference participants get 20% off all purchases. I bought a handsome new picture book, The Dickinsons of Amherst, an anthology of poems about Emily Dickinson, and some other assorted Dickinsonia. I asked that they be held until I could stop by with my car. Then I headed to the Jones Library, Amherst's public library.

The top floor of the Jones contains permanent exhibits devoted to Amherst's three major literary figures: Emily Dickinson, of course; Robert Frost, who taught at Amherst College for many years; and Robert Francis, a Pennsylvania-born poet (1901-1987) who lived alone in Amherst and did most of his work in what was then a quiet, unused room on the top floor of the Jones. He also taught violin, and the exhibit included his instrument lying in its open case, draped with hair from the sprung bow. The Jones own many original manuscripts from each poet. I inquired about Frost's "The Silken Tent." It is not among their holdings.

After that I went next door to the Amherst Historical Society. It was founded near the end of the 19th century by Amherst artist and lecturer Mabel Loomis Todd. The museum's main attraction this summer has been an exhibit showcasing her career and accomplishments.

Most of my readers are undoubtedly not as immersed in the Dickinson family saga as I am. To a Dickinson student, Mabel Loomis Todd is at once an important and a problematic figure. I have written about her before in this space, about her involvement with the family as the mistress of Emily Dickinson's brother Austin. It was that relationship that put her in a position to be instrumental in making Emily Dickinson's work available to the public. Those who revere Austin's wife, Susan Glbert Dickinson, for her devoted friendship to Emily and her role as Emily's most trusted reader and confidante are understandably not great fans of Mabel the homewrecker. Those (much smaller in number) who seek to minimize or even negate Susan's role often accord Mabel a respect which overlooks her apparent lapses in character.

If I had to characterize my own take on Mabel, I'd have to say that I have always viewed her as the "shameful hussy" rather than the "tragic love heroine." The exhibit, a splendid and carefully-researched array of artifacts from Mabel's life (she lived well into the twentieth century), focused on her as an accomplished artist (she'd have her own painting show today), travel writer, and lecturer. It minimized (without denying) her involvement with Austin Dickinson and the lawsuit brought by his widow over a piece of land he deeded to Mabel. The experience served to remind me that Mabel, like any woman, should be viewed as a person in her own right and not as she relates to a man.

The first official part of the Emily Dickinson International Society annual meeting didn't actually take place until the evening banquet. At registration I reconnected with people I met in 1999 and people I've come to know from participating in the several e-mail discussion lists that are devoted to the poet. The meal, catered by Amherst College, was, well, unremarkable (a slab of plain, unadorned baked chicken, some boiled potatoes, and lemon sorbet for dessert -- everything was cold except the sorbet). 

The highlight of the evening was a performance by the Mirror Visions Ensemble of a song cycle entitled A Visit with Emily. It used words taken from her poems and some of her letters. It was lively and made a good introduction to the workshops and lectures that were to fill the next day.