Dear Lucy,
I recently brought a typewriter, a big ugly (but beautiful) electric one from the 80s. I just loved the idea of seeing the mark being made on the paper as I typed - touchable, inky, noisy. I could see myself smacking the paper with letters, words and wonder. Turns out it has a dicky ‘h’ that looks like a slightly spidery capital K. I kind of love it all the more for the flaw.
Beyond testing it to see if it works it now it sits, waiting for a fresh piece of paper to be wound into it, ready to come to life and clack away merrily.
But I just can’t seem to sit down at it.
Maybe I know it’ll be a short lived fad and all my Ebay bidding will have been in vain. I could just type swear words over and over again, getting out all my remaining blocks lodged in my finger tips.
It was more of a gesture really. I suppose I liked the idea of putting my steak in the ground and saying, yes! I’m a writer! Look I have a proper typewriter!
I imagined people would go "Oooh," and "Aaah look at your lovely, but yet ugly typewriter!"
And I’d go "Yeeesss, Isn’t it beautiful."
And we’ll all start making oooh and aaah and other happy noises together and it will make such beautiful music that the pictures on the wall will come to life and join in.
Then the house itself would bring in a deeper, base sound to harmonise.
And then the sky would be filled with so much beauty that it will start to sing too, a rich and full symphonic sound, the birds in turn, making beautiful patterns in the sky with their golden wings.
Finally the universe would be so moved by all the beauty that it would break out and join other universes and galaxies and then they’d stop spinning and growing farther apart and instead start coming back together until everything came back to one single point again, still and perfect, surrounded by nothing, but full of everything.
No pressure. Poor typewriter.
I hope you enjoyed the latest Dear Lucy blog. Feel free to contact me at cpsdayoff@gmail.com.
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