This is Mostly About Pens
I was recently invited to submit a piece of writing that I’d sort of, kind of, given up on. For context, my twins just turned three. And my six year old, he’s there too. And I don’t really spend my days doing what I’d like to do– write, submit, keep Cheerios off the floor, that kind of thing. Anyway, I did submit. So I’ve been thinking about hope. Hope is tricky business– too much, and you’re perpetually heartbroken. But if you don’t have enough you’re dead where you stand.
Awakening hope, especially after a fallow period, feels almost a little mean. Why would you do this to yourself? When you had such a nice callus right there. Right away, I said to Rachel, “Of course I know nothing will come of it…”
“Actually,” she said, “You don’t know that.”
Years earlier, after having my first child, I called an old mentor and said, how do I get back? To where I was? When I wrote all the time and it was everything to me? She told me all I could do was keep trying. This is before I got pregnant with the twins, round two. A much more intense round, since everything was doubled (tripled? Because my first never left) and there was also a whole lockdown situation for a lot of their lives. But now that they’re three, as in not-babies, I’m looking around like I just woke up: is it fair to myself to try again? To write a lot and submit a lot and live?
Which brings me to the subject of my new pens. My brother, who is also a writer, is very into fountain pens. And he gifted me four of them, with several bottles of fantastical ink that look like tiny potions. They’re intensely magical. Two of them are scratchy and fold up like a magic trick. One is precise and can’t handle shimmer ink but is exquisite with a watery teal. And the last pen chose me. I’m serious. Nobody else could write with it and get the ink to flow, including my brother, and so it became mine.
They seemed like much too much. Who writes like this? And for what? Proper care recommends that I write with each pen every day. Every day! So every day I try to do it, I’m supposed to take these extravagant pens out and write a little something.
Why hope? Why such a fancy pen? Why submit? Also: why write at all?
I decided to do it because I can. That’s the joy of life– I get to write if I want, submit if I want, and use a fancy pen if it pleases me. Like whistling, or putting my hands in my pockets, or taking a walk. There doesn’t have to be a reason, but if there is one it’s probably just that these are my favorite things to do, and I may as well if I can swing it.
It reminds me of this quote from Madeleine L’Engle in A Circle of Quiet:
“My own response to the wild unpredictability of the universe has been to write stories, to play the piano, to read, listen to music, look at paintings– not that the world may become explainable and reasonable but that I may rejoice in the freedom which unaccountability gives us.”
Rejoicing in my freedom! I know I’ll be rejected, probably a lot. But just look at what I can do! And with such lovely pens.
Writing Prompt: Write the touching history of a box of Wheat Thins.
Reading Recommendations:
Book of Extraordinary Tragedies by Joe Meno. I do typically love his work, but this book got me in particular. Aleksandar and Isobel are failed classical music prodigies struggling on the South Side of Chicago with family and rent and illness. Equal parts fun and heartbreaking, I’d say it’s for a Kevin Wilson fan who prefers a stiffer shot of disappointment and melancholy to go with all that heart.
Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto has been a joy to read as well! This wonderful Japanese translation has been around for 40 years but I’m just getting to it. It’s a quick read and a lively one, full of voice and character. Mikage is a young adult when the last member of her family passes, and the people she ends up moving in with are barely acquaintances. Absolutely pick up this book and get to know them yourself.
Up Next: The Hero of This Book by Elizabeth McCracken has been waiting for me to get to it for months and I think the time has come.