E.B. White & Curiosity
"Always be on the lookout for the presence of wonder." E.B. White
On Saturday, I went with my younger son to a second-hand bookshop that’s not far from where he lives. It has very limited hours, so we made sure to check beforehand to ensure the shop was open. Inside, the books were disorganized and cluttered as a hoarder’s home. Aisles, if you can call the narrow spaces between towers of books stacked on the floor, were barely enough for anyone to move through.
There were general areas for categories (fiction, poetry, plays, classics, philosophy, etc) but it was hard to tell where one began and the other ended.
I navigated my way cautiously to the poetry area whereI dug in boxes, sorted through piles and attempted to find what was on the shelves behind the piles and boxes to little avail. I attempted the same in the classics and philosophy areas. There was no way I could get to the nature writing as it was completely blocked by boxes of books stacked on each other. I had almost given up finding anything, when I spotted The Letters & Essays of E.B. White in a boxed set.
I was glad, too, as the shop was stuffy from the heat (there was no air conditioning) and the dust that covered everything.
As with all of the books, there was no price on this boxed set so I took it up front to the older, exasperated woman who apparently owned and operated the shop to her dismay it seemed from her attitude.
“How much is this?” I inquired.
She proceeded to search for this boxed set on her smart phone. After a few minutes, she answered, “Well, I see one person online trying to sell it for $100 and another one selling it for $10, so how about I meet in the middle and sell it to you for $20?”
I paid her and quickly made haste with my son to a nearby coffeeshop to have iced coffee and read our recently acquired books.
We sat near a window so I could not only read, but also observe passerby and jot down thoughts in the small journal I always carry with me.
In between reading some of White’s essays, I especially loved the one moving essay entitled Death of a Pig, I began to think about how I first discovered E.B. White on the shelves of the library at Olde Providence Elementary School. It was the cover showing a mouse rowing a canoe that peeked my interest and made me snatch it from the shelves and instantly check it out. This became one of the many books I would get in trouble for reading in class when I wasn’t supposed to over the years. It was also the first book that I repeatedly checked out; so much so, in fact, that the librarian finally told me, “You know, Elliott, Mr. White wrote other books. In fact, this one’s my personal favorite.” She handed me a copy of Charlotte’s Web.
It instantly became one of my beloved favorite books of all time. I have said many times, without a trace of hyperbole, that Charlotte’s Web is one of the most perfect books ever written. One of the lines that has stayed with me ever since I first read it was, “…human beings must always be on the watch for the coming of wonders.”
It ties in to another quote by White that is one I always try to live by: Always be on the lookout for the presence of wonder.
What I love about this is how it shows that curiosity is an essential compass for a meaningful life. Curiosity is active. It is the cultivation of a questioning mind. One that is filled with wonder and not cynicism and is able to see the world anew and forever changing.
As humans, we tremble with a longing for meaning.
What makes a life and gives it meaning?
I find mine through being guided by curiosity. Curiosity is continuously learning how to see, to notice, to pay attention, to listen. Curiosity over certainty. “It is best,” E.B. White once said, “to have a strong curiosity, weak affiliations.” What he meant is to not be trapped in rigid beliefs, to hang our hats on certainty. To not be rooted in certainty or a defined narrative allows one to remain open and expansive to wonder.
