Tuesday early afternoon

Thinking about things:

And noticing how everything just comes together for me [and my students hopefully] on days like today when I sit in my study to prepare for tonight's Salon class. A feeling of resolve. Even though the days before today were cluttered with lots of reading and worries about which texts to use and rejecting some and printing out others and then pushing some of these aside upon further examination. Always looking for what I do not know yet but what I want to find.

And then, reading over these chosen short pieces and excerpts from longer writings to be sure they are the ones I want for tonight. And being sure. And most essential for me, reading them once more, thoughtfully and slowly, and thinking and marking and underlining and making my stars with circles and sometimes notations about vocabulary with my pencil, and of course, creating at the top of the page my new found list of thematic notions that have pushed through and found their way into my consciousness. [As you know, these ideas do come from the texts, but I would argue, even more so from inside of me.] This is finding what I am looking for. For me. And later for my students who will arrive at 6:30 tonight.

This kind of resolve just happened to me again when I re-read the last piece for tonight's class. In this excerpted interview, E.B.White reminded me to take time to notice the ideas of fear and humility and hard work and integrity. Pretty wonderful notions to consider I would say.

Just so you know, the texts for tonight will be:

From The New Yorker: Honor Bound: Something Borrowed by Henry Bromell

An excerpt from "Christmas Cards," A Memoir by John Updike

From the New Yorker: Sticky Fingers: Off the Shelf by Patti Smith

An excerpt from The Paris Review: E.B.White, The Art of the Essay No. 1

So here is the last part of this article about E.B. White that brought everything together for me:

[Interviewed by George Plimpton and Frank H. Crowther]

INTERVIEWER

So many critics equate the success of a writer with an unhappy childhood. Can you say something of your own childhood in Mount Vernon?

E.B. WHITE

As a child, I was frightened but not unhappy. My parents were loving and kind. We were a large family (six children) and were a small kingdom unto ourselves. Nobody ever came to dinner. My father was formal, conservative, successful, hardworking, and worried. My mother was loving, hardworking, and retiring. We lived in a large house in a leafy suburb, where there were backyards and stables and grape arbors. I lacked for nothing except confidence. I suffered nothing except the routine terrors of childhood: fear of the dark, fear of the future, fear of the return to school after a summer on a lake in Maine, fear of making an appearance on a platform, fear of the lavatory in the school basement where the slate urinals cascaded, fear that I was unknowing about things I should know about. I was, as a child, allergic to pollens and dusts, and still am. I was allergic to platforms, and still am. It may be, as some critics suggest, that it helps to have an unhappy childhood. If so, I have no knowledge of it. Perhaps it helps to have been scared or allergic to pollens—I don’t know.

A bit later in the interview:

INTERVIEWER

Faulkner has said of writers, “All of us failed to match our dreams of perfection.” Would you put yourself in this category?

WHITE

Yes. My friend, John McNulty, had a title for a popular song he always intended to write and never did: “Keep your dreams within reason.” We both thought this was a very funny idea for a song. I still think it is funny. My dreams have never been kept within reason. I’m glad they’ve not been. And Faulkner was right—all of us failed.

INTERVIEWER

Could you say what those dreams were?

WHITE

No. Here I think you are asking me to be specific, or explicit, about something that is essentially vague and inexpressible. Don Marquis said it perfectly:

My heart has followed all my days

Something I cannot name.

INTERVIEWER

What is it, do you think, when you try to write an English sentence at this date, that causes you to “fly into a thousand pieces”? Are you still encouraged (as Ross once wrote you after reading a piece of yours) “to go on”?

WHITE

It isn’t just “at this date”—I’ve always been unstable under pressure. When I start to write, my mind is apt to race, like a clock from which the pendulum has been removed. I simply can’t keep up, with pen or typewriter, and this causes me to break apart. I think there are writers whose thoughts flow in a smooth and orderly fashion, and they can transcribe them on paper without undue emotion or without getting too far behind. I envy them. When you consider that there are a thousand ways to express even the simplest idea, it is no wonder writers are under a great strain. Writers care greatly how a thing is said—it makes all the difference. So they are constantly faced with too many choices and must make too many decisions.

I am still encouraged to go on. I wouldn’t know where else to go.

E.B.White manuscript: