The Lost Art of Writing

I miss writing.  You may be thinking, "Well, what the heck are you doing right now, you dingbat?"  What I am doing now is typing.  I am typing.  The keys are clicking and words appear magically on a glowing screen.  I type every day: e-mail, texts, IMs, notes on students' electronically submitted essays, discussion board threads, witty Facebook comments.  I type, not write.

What I miss is the physical act of writing.  The scritch-scritch-scritch of the pen as it moves across the page.  The way the paper absorbs the ink.  Mont Blanc pens and fancy stationery.  I remember being giddy when a letter would arrive in the mail.  (Now, all that comes in the mail are bills and junk.)  When we were in Venice, my parents bought me for my birthday an exquisite blown glass fountain pen (the old fashioned kind than needs to be dipped in an ink well) and intricate gold leaf stamped stationery.  I have used the pen once and the stationery twice.  Writing was once a daily activity: lecture notes, notes to pass to friends during class, bizarre ramblings on a notebook cover, letters to friends, thank you notes, journals, assignments. 

Maybe it's more than the physical act of writing that I miss.  Maybe it's the permanence.  Sentences and paragraphs can be deleted, never to be recovered.  Computers crash.  Files aren't saved.  Records disappear when the program closes.  But words on a piece of paper will always exist.  Even when you send the paper through the cross-cut shredder, the words are still there.  Electronic words have an advantage that more people have access to those words.  But, when the website is taken down, those words will cease to exist. I saved every letter I received during college, from both friends at home and friends from college during summer breaks.  I saved every note sent to me by my first serious boyfriend.  Their words to me will endure.

Remember, the pen is mightier than the sword, either by crafting a clever comeback or by stabbing someone in the neck.