Category Archive

Letters are beautiful. I have no idea what attracted me so much to them—maybe a love for books, and the words on them. But it was more than that. I loved learning to write. The principal of our elementary school, who as I recall was rarely without a cigarette (and a drink, I learned later) did take time out of his day to teach the second graders handwriting.

He had lovely cursive writing, and I imitated his script, elegant as it was. But typefaces seemed so interesting, too. I wondered why we made letters the way we did. I have no idea why, but I experimented with it. Maybe a lot of kids do.

My mom noticed my interest, and in seventh grade, she bought me an Osmiroid fountain pen with exchangeable nibs, and a book on calligraphy. I tried. Not so great. I tried again. Still not great. I was fairly convinced that I could never figure it out, and put the kit away.

Summers as a kid with absolutely nothing to do are some combination of death and living. Boredom and freedom mix in such a way that after the excitement of not having to get up for school gets old, something has to happen or wars begin. For some reason, the summer after seventh grade, I decided not to fight my brother—maybe he had a lot of friends that year. Instead, I started riding my bike to the pool every night and swimming laps for an hour. I did this every night, and came home and had ice cream and wore sweatshirts in the air conditioning. Something about the chlorine and the monotony of going back and forth underwater was so satisfying. It was the perfect time to get the pens out, and I did.

I kept working at it, and finally found some success. My mom’s friend, who displayed her artwork occasionally, started hiring me to make signs. Other people ordered poems, sayings, documents of various sorts. I decided to be an artist. When I got to high school, we were fortunate enough to have eight separate art studios, and a full-year class of rotations to try out everything. I found that every other medium came as slowly to me as the calligraphy, but if it could be studied, I could usually develop some skill. Still, I always went back to the letters, switched pens, tried new methods, read more books, developed it. The papers I find now are glorious, the pens magnificent, the inks gorgeous. What a treat! It makes me want to buy sealing wax.

What made me enjoy calligraphy was not so much the product I made, although I did find great satisfaction in a well-accomplished feat. I loved the practice. I loved the repetition, the concentration that was necessary, but the appreciation for each and every contemplative stroke of the pen. It was something so beautiful, and it calmed me—a nervous preteen, then teenager—as much as the swimming did. I found myself not exactly thinking, mind wandering, when I was doing both these things, but simply present. Indeed, if I let myself think too much, I skipped a line, or a lane. I missed a letter or a word, or ran into a wall or another person. Many occupations have patron saints, but scribes get a demon: Titivillus, there to strike when attention wanders. I have never heard of such a thing for lap swimmers, but maybe it was not considered an occupation when the demons were getting their job assignments.

I tried Chinese calligraphy once, for maybe six classes. I loved it, but was lousy at that first attempt. I bought some brushes, an ink block, rice paper. Sumi-e had its method, bamboo, plum, but was in my twenties and didn’t have time for the requisite state of boredom to learn it well. There is something to be said for not being busy. Still, I enjoyed it, and just recently, I tried t’ai chi. It seemed similar, like drawing characters, moving brush on page, creating, and being.

It had been years since I took out my pens when I finally did. My skills now seem a bit rusty, but retrievable. I had forgotten the place the letters take me, the way things I copied became imprinted on my soul. For years, I pulled books off the shelves to find poems, and there were two I came to love in that time, both by Dylan Thomas. The anthology in the living room had “Fern Hill” and “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night…” Both poems remain, almost word for word, those words, words that in the latter I scarcely understood as I do now. My favorite to copy of the two was “Fern Hill,” with its varying line lengths, and the language, so beautiful. Then, later, when I learned more French, Apollinaire, “Sous le pont Mirabeau coule la Seine/ Et nos amours…” More things I didn’t understand then, but stuck in my mind, still, as the letters still are and always will be.