Joy: Ink on my Hands

Please Honk if any other writer under the age of 40 understands the joy I feel because ink stains my fingers this morning? With the advent of computers it has been…years! Yes I realize I am showing my age rejoicing in ink-stained hands, but there is something decorative about it to me and ON me. There was I time, way before this year 2011 came to be that I did not emerge from a day’s work without ink covering my fingers, sometimes my clothes, my desk, or even on my face from where I might have wiped a tear from writing.

Everyone is typing on computers mostly now. I love my computer; do not get me wrong. I have saved more paper in the past 20 years than I can estimate. There is hardly any reason to print most things anymore, even, and this is a good thing. Articles, documents, letters, they can all be emailed or sent as ‘copy; or what ever they call it now? Ohhhh but there was a time, and it was not so long ago when a writer’s world was covered in errant ink. Those days are gone for the most part and good riddance I must admit. I cannot help laugh at myself with the correlation of our grandparents telling us how they used to have “walk a mile to the library” and all that corny stuff.

Well! Today I succumbed to hand-scribing words, and lo and behold, yes, I have ink stains on my fingers I want to lick them it is so memorable.

Nostalgic? Yes. Ridiculous pleasure? Perhaps.

No matter…I did my work by hand today, and I will revel in the ink-stained fingers such an old-fashioned writer dealt with in times long past. No one can tell my occupation anymore because my hands are so clean as a rule. That is just fine with me. Just the same I want to lick this ink from my fingers for old-time’s sake…except I do not want it gone, just yet.

--PPM