It’s not important what I write.
It’s not important what I wear.
It’s not important what I even do.
What’s important is that I’m here, sitting in the cafe, honoring ritual and tradition and carving out a new set of habits to see me through the winter.
These words are mostly hollow and empty – vapid vessels that give my hand something to do in pushing pen across paper – and it’s good, it feels good. There is joy enough in physically writing, in finding the flow of letters, slowed in my head for having to write them all out. Writing, in its physical hand-wrought form, is becoming a lost art, and a favored indulgence.
At one of my early jobs with the state as a Keyboard Specialist (now called Office Assistant) I remember the head Secretary (now called Administrative Assistant – we have come so far!) being given something to type out, and the person doling out the assignment asked somewhat sheepishly if she would mind typing it out.
“No, it’s been a while since I got to do straight typing, and I kind of missed it,” the Secretary said.
I understood exactly what she was saying, how good it felt sometimes to execute a routine, especially one at which you excel and do well. Going through such physical practices can be soothing, almost meditative in a way.
There’s a similar feeling I get as I write out these words on lined paper. It is structure, it is order, it is ritual – all at a time when those things move further from comfortable reach. Most of all, it is a process – and I’ve always loved the process and the practice more than the result and finished product.
