My Love Affair with Writing

At seven, I pull a smooth, sleek pencil from a box and grip it between my fingers, its perfect ridges infusing them with passion. Slowly, mournfully, I insert the magnificent wooden object into a dark hole and crank a handle, cringing at the noises I hear. In a few moments, though, I rejoice when I pull the pencil out to find a crisp, glorious point. My passion overflows then, unable to be contained. The scent of the graphite as it etches, the look of the clean, white paper as it becomes more than it was just a moment ago—the sense of a child, hard at work, not for profit, but for the love of the craft.

At fifteen, I select a pencil from my purse, choosing the one with the colors that match my mood that day. A couple of clicks, and I am ready. I can write for hours—no need to halt my work for a point that has become dull. Yet my teenage self wonders from time to time how much is really gained. Does efficiency simply mean gaining a few seconds that were previously lost sharpening a pencil? Or is there more at stake? Some days I open a box in my desk and remove a long-forgotten object, one that is lying there patiently, waiting for its day to return.

At seventeen, I reach for the ballpoint pen, its smooth ink gliding over the page. The smudging and fading of my former work, exposed to time and air, no longer makes my pencil my best friend. Instead I am enamored by the variety of colors—the soft blue, the firm black, the kaleidoscope of hues and shades making up the world. My pencil lies abandoned in my drawer, a forgotten lover, one whose time has past.

At twenty-four, I relegate the ballpoint to the back of the drawer beside the pencil. My fingers click over the keyboard, the words flying from my mind to the computer screen in the blink of an eye. No longer are there smudges in lead, no longer ugly inkblots hiding early attempts at art. Long forgotten are the mistakes, the drafts, the words left behind.

Still I have questions. Why is efficiency so important? Is the time spent writing by hand really wasted? What if I want to hold in my hands the story of where I started and where I am now? All things are possible with my computer, but does that mean that there is no loss? What good is knowing where I am if I don’t know where I have been?

Technology has moved on. Life has moved on. The simple world of a child is no more. Yet in my heart, a fondness lingers—my first love calling me back—a yellow pencil, no. 2, perfectly sharpened, and ready to tell the story that whispers in my mind. On some of these days, when my world isn’t too chaotic and the story to tell is brief, I return to the one who incited this affair and remember how it all began.