Paean to the Pen

Paean to the Pen

Millions of words hurtle round the globe every minute on the world wide web, but some script still travels by aeroplane or trudges its way across oceans on ships. Lindsay Wright ponders the art of communicating by letter.

I started writing to my uncle again recently. Hand writing, that is. Selecting a comfortable pen from the pottle on my desk, sitting before a blank sheet of paper and thoughtfully transcribing my thoughts, ideas and experiences into words.

For the last 25 years almost all my writing has been by computer keyboard, or before that the rattly keys of an old Remington typewriter. My uncle, who recently turned 70, has never used a keyboard. “Computers…” he snorted, “I wouldn’t know how to turn one on…”

There’s no power button to push on a pen. The power comes from within. The gentle flow of ballpoint on paper happens at a pace which matches the stream (or trickle..) of thought between brain and fingers; a natural progression of ideas and memories being transformed to words and communication.

Hand writing is individual; it unfolds with unique style and can be embellished by flourishes, curlescues and digressions from the norm. No pre-programmed set of fonts, devised by European and North American printers, some centuries old, could ever emulate this style but, on the other hand, the Microsoft Corporation’s font library couldn’t be used by a hand writing expert to identify you in a court of law either. Writing, like society at large, is becoming increasingly bland and standardised.

I admire my uncle’s leisurely sloping copperplate, tracing an elegant path across the page like a messenger from an earlier age when time was abundant and people used some of it to develop their own writing styles. “It’s just what they taught us at school,” he shrugged. My own script is a childish higgledy-piggledy print which I was taught as a young reporter so that other reporters could read my copy or notes. Utilitarian -  but ugly.

My uncle’s letters abide by an etiquette that dates back beyond the early days of empire. Dates, addresses and salutations all follow form – none of the “Hi” hail that kicks off most e-mails these days.

Beware though, writers cramp can be crippling if you haven’t spent time with a pen in hand for a few years. It might even pay to do some training before launching into a major work by hand.

Hand writing opens up a whole new appreciation for the early authors; Shakespeare, Lewis Carroll et al, whose work was all laboriously drawn out with a quill or later with a metal nib, regularly dipped into an earthenware inkpot. I recall veteran publisher, Christine Cole Catley, scoffing a few years back that “these days everyone who owns a word processor, thinks that they’re a writer..only a few of them are.” A mere machine, does not a writer make, it seems.

For hand writers, there’s no clicking the “send” button to fire your words off through the ether. The paper is carefully folded and slid into an envelope. If there’s any immediacy required, it might involve rounding the dog up for a walk to the nearest mail box where the letter will languish for a few hours until the next collection. Otherwise the envelope will stay on the hall table until the next time I’m passing by the post office.

When you hit the “power” button on a computer and the screen flickers to life, it engenders an immediate urgency. The cursor impatiently flashing in one corner, the bright, expectant screen and the quickfire pace at which letters multiply into words and sentences across it, create a tension in the user. It’s something like the difference between walking and driving; a walker will stride along at their own natural pace, dictated by their level of fitness and the length of their stride. But put them behind the wheel of an automobile and they become a homicidal maniac; determined to make the machine go as fast as it can.

But hand writing is relaxing, recreational even. Thousands of New Zealanders turn up at calligraphy classes throughout the country to learn the art – and art it is. Renowned calligraphers from overseas draw big audiences on lecture tours. Derived from ancient Greek “kallos” for beauty and “graphe” meaning writing, Calligraphy is catching on.

Computer generated communications may be fast and efficient, but fine hand writing is beautiful and a source of pride. The captain of a coastal freighter once showed me proudly round his bridge then, with a flourish, threw the ships logbook open to reveal pages of beautifully symmetrical flowing script which documented every aspect of his vessels navigation. He stood back and beamed while I boggled at it. Everything else on the ship was utilitarian and workmanlike, but the logbook was an artwork.  When that ship was long gone to the breakers’ yard, the logbook would still be an object of awe and admiration.

There’s no “backspace ‘ or  ‘delete” button to wipe out embarrassing mistakes, faux pas or glitches in a hand written letter. “Twink”, “White Out” and other concoctions that are used to paint over errors, allow a bit of literary leeway but, short of laboriously rewriting all their work, people have to take their time and get it right first time. Once upon a time, the first draft was written in pencil so that errors could be erased, or amended, before being committed to ink and passing into posterity. 

Paying 50 cents for a stamp irks anyone old enough to remember when it was a tenth of that price. Postage price rises (and another one is due…) impact particularly on non computer users – older people who haven’t grasped the technology or haven’t the spare money to buy the latest lap or desk top. The charities and community organisations who mail reams of newsletters and meeting minutes out every month, must also be feeling the postage pinch.

Maybe handwriting belongs to a time when a carbon footprint was the smudge left behind by someone who had walked through coal dust. Letter writers use paper and pen which are both manufactured at considerable cost to the planet - and the fossil fuels consumed in getting their letters to their destination can also be added to their overall cost to the environment. But computers also squander a lot of precious resources during their manufacture (and disposal when they become outdated) and they also need gigawatts of electricity to keep them on line.

People laughingly refer to “snail mail,” describing the letters that posties pedal around the country, but in a snail and hare communications race, it may just be the snail mail that wins in the end when environmental impact is added up and accounted for.  

Most of the snail mail these days seems to be bills or blandishments to buy shoes or cosmetics so it’s always a treat to find a hand written envelope in the letter box addressed to me and not just another computer generated address label.

Letters convey news, hope, warmth and comfort from one person to another – and are delivered by people. They are full of words we all understand – unlike the arcane nouns and acronyms of computerdom.

And where else do you get to call everybody “dear?”

Ends…