Quotes - E.B. White

I've been on a non-fiction kick lately so I pored through The Art of the Personal Essay: An Anthology from the Classical Era to the Present, compiled by Phillip Lopate.

Here are a few words pulled from E.B. White's wonderful essay, The Ring of Time:

For the writers among us (or maybe for anyone, really)

It has been ambitious and plucky of me to attempt to describe what is indescribable, and I have failed, as I knew I would. But I have discharged my duty to society; and besides, a writer, like an acrobat, must occasionally try a stunt that is too much for him.

For everyone

The only sense that is common, in the long run, is the sense of change - and we all instinctively avoid it, and object to the passage of time, and would rather have none of it.

I've glossed over a lot of the essay, especially regarding the African-American Civil Rights Movement (which has, apparently, been left out of some of the reproductions found online).  Overall, the essay is masterfully written, and well worth reading in its entirety.

Oh, and "plucky" is a word that needs to grow into regular usage. Who's with me?

Huh? What?!

If you’re observant enough, you can catch me staring at the ceiling, or a blank computer screen, or my fingernails, or the wall. If so, you’ve just caught me while I was lost in my mind. Ask me what I was doing, and I’d have a heck of a time trying to tell you.

Fact is, I was gone: from the room, from my senses, and from the moment.

Much of what brings this on eludes me. I’ve tried to think it through, to see where my absentmindedness came from, but I end up in the same place, and with my face pointed in the same direction: toward the ceiling, toward the blank computer screen, toward my fingernails…

While I can’t recall much from my thoughts of the problem, my bookshelf contains evidence of my search. “Dissociation” and “Stress” are words on some of the spines of my books. From what I gleaned by reading, my inattentiveness is how I cope with stress, a mechanism I used to survive some traumatic event as a kid.

Now, I haven’t seen a professional in a while so I’m not diagnosing myself, but this is something I want to explore a bit.

So, I’ve been affected by trauma. It’s something that I try not to admit because I’m afraid I’d use it to get pity, and I hate it when I do that. But, I’ll make that claim for the sake of this topic. I guess the trauma involves my sister's, Joan's, declining health, or the witnessing of it. It’s a topic that I have touched on before, so I won’t go through much of it now. I don’t feel like talking about it anyway.

Even thinking on it for a minute, I can see how I moved myself inward, trying to ignore the partially garbled words of her decayed speech, and successfully ignoring her when her speech turned into garbled moans. It was easier to stare at the wall and pretend that it emitted a white noise, coating all of my senses, drawing me away from the reality of her condition. At the few moments when I'm aware and I hear her gargle her spit, I cringe. It's a reaction that I can’t help.

Perhaps it’s my awkward way of mourning for what she’s lost. I'd like to think so, at least.

I don’t think that this trauma is the sole cause for my loopy mind. I haven’t ruled out the lack of sleep, poor diet, the Internet, and that awful commute on the 91 freeway as culprits or co-conspirators. Also, there’s only so much I can glean from this introspection before I start navel gazing.

And if you see me do that, be kind and poke me on the shoulder. Thanks!