Last Friday I encouraged my workmates to try writing with the fountain pen on display in a gift shop we entered.
I had one as a teenager and loved the way it glided on paper. I wanted others to experience this. After a few attempts they got it.
In a world where most of us cramp when we overuse a manual writing implement because our fingers drive today’s communication tools, it’s refreshing to reacquaint ourselves with feeling like we have a more direct way of spilling ourselves onto the page.
It’s more organic when we need to write on a post it or leave a message for someone on scrap paper. There’s one instrument between ourselves and the final product, not a digital reconstruction with choice of font. Our penmanship is ours. It’s our style, and on the rare occasions we see it, it reflects something back to us.
Yet even now I use my phone for dictating plot twists rather than using my notebook. I have even been gifted two beautiful engraved pens, one from a friend and one from my mum. But at least I used one of them to take notes at a social media marketing seminar the other night and it felt natural.
Having a good pen in your hand is a treat worth rediscovering. The ink flows through craftsmanship. It’s tactile and alive. It’s you. A life story told in the handwriting itself.
kevin klehr 