The Spirituality of Creativity
Pens. Black ink, extra fine point Pilot or Sharpie pens. I can’t have too many. I must be a writer as I have had a long-term love affair with pens. As far back as I can remember, I have always been a bit OCD about my writing utensils. Pencils had to be freshly sharpened; it somehow made me feel smarter, keener, and certainly, much neater. It also mattered to me whether the ink in my pens was black or blue. I think my preference was blue back then; well, purple actually. That was back in junior high school when I changed the spelling of my name to Janis, like Joplin, and I replaced the dot in the “I” with a heart. How perfectly 70’s.
Black ink is clearly my preference today; do not ask me to write anything but a shopping list in blue. The pens I love the most are not very expensive; you can buy a four-pack at CVS for around $8. The pens I dislike…I started to say hate but I will save that for something more despicable than a medium-point blue Bic. I would rather use one of the ubiquitous green pens you get at TD bank or even a crooked one from the chiropractor’s office meant to look like your pre-adjusted spine. Possibly because they are free; but more likely, because at least they have something to say and a bit of character.
Maybe it is the name Bic that rubs me the wrong way. Pilot and Sharpie sound purposeful and descriptive. Bic sounds like nothing I want in MY hand. A Pilot will guide me and take me places. And Sharpie…well nobody wants a Dullie. Pilot and sharpie are dictionary-worthy. But Bic? What is a Bic? It might be a derivative of bick which means bitch. What marketing genius came up with that?
Wanting to be a writer means you think you have something to say to the world; a story to tell, some life-changing experience or insight you want to share, or maybe it is just the runoff of an overactive imagination. Writing is the art of letter-making. I love practicing calligraphy because it makes me slow down and watch the letters take shape. As I draw each letter, I think about proportion and line weight and arc and slant; the shape of each letter gives beauty to written language and I appreciate it all the more. I write mostly with pen on paper; reserving keystrokes for expediency and printability. Of course, I type much faster than I write and my brain moves faster than both. But speed is not the priority when it comes to writing from the heart and soul. It is the beauty of the form and the meaning of the message that delight me. The older I get, the more I have to write about; thoughts and experiences that are amusing and insights or inspirations that might be useful to others. But mostly I write to entertain myself and to have a landing place for the musings of a mad hatter.
You don’t have to love writing to be a writer; nor do you have to love pens or paper. But you do have to love words. I love words and I love the experience of watching words form from my hand. They come to me from the ether, dropped into my mind like pennies in a jar; down the neural pathways to my hand which draws the shapes that form the words that enter your mind; providing a pathway for strangers to connect in the here and now and ever after.
I read somewhere, a long time ago, that we each carry a book inside us and writers are the ones who feel compelled to put their story, or someone else’s story, on paper. So perhaps my pen preference peculiarity is actually an indication that the story I carry requires a certain attention to detail. A very fine point pen delivering black ink on white paper is my medium; picking up the frequency of the story I carry and the rhythm of my heart song. My soul seeks somewhere to be seen and heard and it somehow finds its way into the world through this fine-point Pilot pen.
Namaste,
Janice (aka Janis)
