The Christmas letter …

I came upon the following lines from an obscure source, quoting Horace, among the many legends of ancient literature whom I have not read.

“Parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus.”

The line  translates to “Mountains will be in labor, and a ridiculous mouse will be born.” This phrase comes from Horace’s Satires (Book 1, Satire 8) and is often interpreted as a commentary on the disparity between expectations and outcomes. I am plagiarizing that last line starting with “This phrase…”.

Enough of that. It brought to mind a file I used to keep and update that I called “Wit and Wisdom”. I went looking for it, and sure enough it has survived all of the new computers that I have used over the past years. The W&W file is quite voluminous and reflects what I was doing and thinking at any given time. I’ll cite two of scores of quotes:

“If you don’t think too good, don’t think too much.” (Attributed to baseball legend Ted Williams)

How could such a profound statement come from such an ordinary thinker? Part of the beauty of it is use of the word “good” where “well” should be used. (Food tastes good, cars run well.) It is as if Williams was deliberately self-deprecating as he spoke.

The other is Christopher Hitchens:

“That which is asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.”

That has come to be known as “Hitchens’ razor.” He was a brilliant man, and witty as well. With that line he reduced 99% of argumentation in our society to 11 words.

This brought me to a task set before me that over the years has caused some friction between my spouse and me … the Christmas letter. I hate them. I wrote a few under protest, needing to mention every child, none of whom has ever experienced anything but brilliant success. We settled into our respective spheres, and I began to write short essays to attach to photos of ourselves doing extraordinary feats like … travelling, standing in places. This year we are in front of  Lovrjenac Fortress, called “The Red Keep” in Game of Thrones. That, like converting ordinary education into a remarkable career success, took talent on our part, to stand there and do a selfie. We are accomplished people.

We do send out Christmas cards, and I do like to enclose some bit of writing. I like to keep it short and maybe even poignant. My only real objective is to stay in touch with people. You can learn things about me/us, as the the effects of the aging process, of having to keep up this property, and to endure trouble while keepin’ on smilin’. I have two thoughts this year … one, to use some poetry. The other to invert the process, and write a short Christmas letter completely backwards. I have not yet figured it out.

I have a bulletin board on my wall here, and have attached some poetry to it, pretty mundane and ordinary stuff by the standards of people who appreciate poetry. I cannot read poetry, just as I’ve never been able to appreciate Shakespeare unless the really good stuff is pointed out to me by better scholars. Here’s a short verse from Macbeth that we have posted there, as both of us were forced to memorize it sometime in schooling.

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

Not much I can say about that without detracting from the profound beauty of the words.

Another is a poem that a friend in high school would launch into (opening lines only) whenever he was being teased or ridiculed. He would boldly say “If, by Rudyard Kipling.” That’s why I know about the poem. When I mentioned to him that he used the poem so well back then, he had no idea what I was talking about. But it stuck with me.

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too:
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same:
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch and toss
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
⁠And never breathe a word about your loss:
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
⁠Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much:
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

Again, I cannot improve, only detract. And finally, the third poem we’ve posted:

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

Here I will add some commentary, but not to in any way detract from these words by Robert Frost. I have a cousin my age, and we have stayed in touch over the decades. We are each in our seventies. She is married to a man who loves her and takes good care as she slips into memory loss. I mentioned this poem to him on our last visit, and we Yandexed to find it … and he came up with The Road Not Taken. That’s not it, I said. The one I am thinking about, he says the last line twice, as if to emphasize something. “And miles to go before I sleep.” He is saying something profound, I said. He is talking about death. We found the poem, he read it aloud, and knowing his situation and his profound loving commitment to go the distance, a tear formed, embarrassingly, in his eye.

That’s the power of poetry. I wish I did not have to have it read to me by people like James Earl Jones to appreciate it better. But that’s me. Please feel free to improve on what is written here in the comments.