Written sometime in 2004. For Christmas, I asked for a good pen. I had seen a sale in Tuesday Morning’s flyer for “Colorful Mont Blanc Pens” and showed the ad to my husband.
Since I can remember, I had been receiving Levenger catalogs, a “resource for serious readers and writers.” I admit I craved one of those fancy pens with sophisticated names and special cases. Perhaps if I owned one of those pens I would finally be the writer I always dreamed of being. That elegant writing instrument would inspire me to get up every morning to spill a story or jot down a profound poem. Even though I continued to receive monthly catalogs, often purchasing gifts for friends, I never ordered a pen for myself. They were much too expensive. And what if I misplaced the pen, or worse yet, lent it to someone who loved it as much as I did and failed to return it? I was convinced the loss would devastate me.
In my mind, I had bought the pen, written several short stories that became well-received, and then lost the pen never able to write again.
No matter what happens in my life, as marriages end and begin, as landscapes change and relationships come and go, my hand continues to write. Even now I hold an old cap-less Papermate pen, having searched high and low for my designated “good” writing pen. The words still want to come out.
I’m also a big fan of decorative journals, the more colorful and cute, the better. But when I read through the pages of my life, I find the stories are all sad, not matching the cover. That I only seem to write when I’m depressed or angry. And I resolve to write when I’m happy, too, but that never seems to last.
I got a Sanskrit CD and a book from Christmas, along with a massager from The Sharper Image. My birthday came and I got a game, which I returned. And it is a tidy excuse for not writing, but at my feet sits a laptop connected to a wireless network, and the excuse is weakened. And yet I keep scratching away with this blue, splotchy pen with every intention to begin again. As of now.
That was then.
Although I did finally get a Mont Blanc Meisterstuck Roller Ball from my husband, it was too precious and I barely used it. It stayed in the protective leather Mont Blanc case on top of my office desk. Sometimes I would write with it in my journal, but the tip was too fine and a bit tiresome for my hand to write for too long.
For Christmas nearly seventeen years later, I received the Mont Blanc Starwalker Rollerball Pen. It stays in a little pen pouch that winds around my latest journal. The ink tip is bigger than I’m used to so the letters aren’t as crisp, but it feels amazing in my hand as I draw it across a sketch pad or sheet with no lines–when I sign my name. I feel the love of my friend, who bought it for me because I wanted it so much. I tried buying it for myself on eBay only to return it because it was fake and broke when I first used it. He named it Jupiter, my benefic planet of which I was born in its day and hour and has blessed me my entire life.
I continue to write. Whether it’s on my iPad, this keyboard synched to my laptop, sheets of random paper, in Notion or Evernote, the words continue to spill out, needing to be released into the world in just the way I sequence them.
This post is for Brian.