Borderland

We’ve got a house full of family from out of town, and in. Good times. It’s dark, but not too cold to get out and play. Sun comes up around 11:00 and dips out of sight a little before 3:00. Lots of time for sleeping and talking, punctuated by bursts of outdoor activity. We all went snowboarding the other day. The kids are masters. I’ll be a perpetual beginner. But what the heck. Nothing like a load of snow down the back of your neck to remind you of where you stand.

I really like this time of year. It’s Quiet.

Thanks to Jeff Wasserman, who used E.B. White’s 1952 Christmas Greeting as a writing prompt, which I pass along in full:

From this high midtown hall, undecked with boughs, unfortified with mistletoe, we send forth our tinselled greetings as of old, to friends, to readers, to strangers of many conditions in many places. Merry Christmas to uncertified accountants, to tellers who have made a mistake in addition, to girls who have made a mistake in judgment, to grounded airline passengers, and to all those who can’t eat clams! We greet with particular warmth people who wake and smell smoke. To captains of river boats on snowy mornings we send an answering toot at this holiday time. Merry Christmas to intellectuals and other despised minorities! Merry Christmas to the musicians of Muzak and men whose shoes don’t fit! Greetings of the season to unemployed actors and the blacklisted everywhere who suffer for sins uncommitted; a holly thorn in the thumb of compilers of lists! Greetings to wives who can’t find their glasses and to poets who can’t find their rhymes! Merry Christmas to the unloved, the misunderstood, the overweight. Joy to the authors of books whose titles begin with the word “How” (as though they knew!). Greetings to people with a ringing in their ears; greetings to growers of gourds, to shearers of sheep, and to makers of change in the lonely underground booths! Merry Christmas to old men asleep in libraries! Merry Christmas to people who can’t stay in the same room with a cat! We greet, too, the boarders in boarding hoses on 25 December, the duennas in Central Park in fair weather and foul, and young lovers who got nothing in the mail. Merry Christmas to people who plant trees in city streets; merry Christmas to people who save prairie chickens from extinction! Greetings of a purely mechanical sort to machines that think–plus a sprig of artificial holly. Joyous Yule to Cadillac owners whose conduct is unworthy of their car! Merry Christmas to the defeated, the forgotten, the inept; joy to all dandiprats and bunglers! We send, most particularly and most hopefully, our greetings and our prayers to soldiers and guardsmen on land and sea and in the air–the young men doing the hardest things at the hardest time of life. To all such, Merry Christmas, blessings, and good luck! We greet the Secretaries-designate, the President-elect; Merry Christmas to our new leaders, peace on earth, good will, and good management! Merry Christmas to couples unhappy in doorways! Merry Christmas to all who think they are in love but aren’t sure! Greetings to people waiting for trains that will take them in the wrong direction, to people doing up a bundle and the string is too short, to children with sleds and no snow! We greet ministers who can’t think of a moral, gagmen who can’t think of a joke. Greetings, too, to the inhabitants of other planets; see you soon! And last, we greet all skaters on small natural ponds at the edge of woods toward the end of afternoon. Merry Christmas, skaters! Ring, steel! Grow red, sky! Die down, wind! Merry Christmas to all and to all a good morrow!
E.B. White, 12/20/52

I enjoy E.B. White everywhere I find him. Reading this piece prompted me to search for more of his goodwill. The New York Times has a list of interviews and articles about him.

From E. B. White: Notes and Comment by Author:

“If the world were merely seductive,” he noted, “that would be easy. If it were merely challenging, that would be no problem. But I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve (or save) the world and a desire to enjoy (or savor) the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.”

From an interview about writing and country living:

Every once in a while some one who is putting together a reader–you know, a book of extra reading for an English class–writes for permission to use a piece of mine. I always say ‘Sure–thanks very much,’ but the last time I said ‘Go ahead and use what you want, but how about sending me one of the books?’ When I was in school, books of that kind were full of Walter Pater. I thought they must be changing their pace a lot, wanting my stuff.

“He sent me the book and I read my piece in it. At the end there were a lot of questions: ‘Why did Mr. White use repetition here?’ was one question. And ‘Explain the author’s purpose in inserting this phrase.’

“Gosh, those questions aren’t easy. I tried to answer them and flunked cold. I admit there was repetition there, but I hadn’t realized it. Anyway, I couldn’t think of a good sound reason why I’d used it. . . .”

From What Am I Saying to My Readers?:

What am I saying to my readers? Well, I never know. Writing to me is not an exercise in addressing readers, it is more as though I were talking to myself while shaving.

Peace. Keep up the Good work.