I wasn’t going to stop.
I love me a yard sale. I seem to always manage to find some treasure I think I cannot live without. I bring it home all excited and smiles; Mark typically looks on and shakes his head, clearly believing we could have in fact lived without whatever it is. Whatever.
But, this time, I wasn’t going to stop. But, I saw this. And, Mark did too. And, right there in our Honda Odyssey we had one of those heart fusion moments as a couple. Maybe music started playing; I’m not sure because I was too busy looking at this beauty.
10 minutes and $10 later, we had ourselves a vintage typewriter.
Isn’t it simply handsome with its dark grey metal finish and low profile, sleek lines?
Our house has been transformed into an office from the 1960s as the clicks and clacks of typewriter keys and the zip of the return to a new line fill up whatever quiet there is. This typewriter has created more words this week than it probably has in decades, producing everything from murder mystery stories to messages for mom (think notes like “When are we going to the pull?”) and pages of what looks like letters from someone with a really foul mouth as all the fancy symbols are tried. They can’t get enough of this new-fangled contraption. I may or may not have had these words come out of my mouth: “If you don’t stop, you are going to lose your typewriter time.”
It’s kind of inspiring watching them tickle the ivories and put words on a page. I see their tongues out just a little as they are thinking hard about what word should come next. They aren’t slowed down second guessing themselves and tempted by a delete key because there is none. Typewriters force a commitment to your gut. Sometimes they sit for only a few minutes; other times, I hear the clickity clacks for many, many minutes as some novel is underway.
Watching and hearing them has made me think that I haven’t done it enough myself lately. When I create a space to think deeply, I write. Writing is like that for me; the given result of putting my to-do lists aside and creating a pocket of time and energy to intentionally consider things. Sometimes I share the words here; sometimes I don’t. Regardless, when I’m not writing at all whether in my messy spiral notebook or on this place online, it’s not typically an issue of writer’s block; it’s more like a thinking block. And, that’s much more serious of a block.
I could make some sort of personal commitments—spend 10 minutes a day writing nonstop or find a writing partner or commit to posting however many blog posts a week…But, I don’t think I will. Instead, I’m just going to simply commit to some daily thinking because if I commit to thinking more, the writing will result and I have a feeling my heart will feel much more content. Not sure how that’s going to happen; I can just picture my response to the children as they ask me to play Uno…again… “I will in a little while. Right now, I’m thinking.”
However it happens and whatever it ends up looking like, I think I’ll stick with my Macbook. I don’t think this overthinker is ready to surrender the delete key just yet.
