I bought a typewriter.
I’ve been wanting to buy one for a while and I always keep a look out as
I wander through op shops and second hand 'retro' markets. I found a Brother Deluxe 760TR in working
condition for a reasonable price. Its
carriage return was a bit stiff so I took it to be serviced by possibly the
last typewriter service person in Melbourne – on Johnston Street Carlton, in a
shop I have walked past hundreds of times over the last 30 years. I brought it home, smelling of oil and
working like new. I put it on the dining
table, found some scrap paper, and started typing*. When I left my place for a moment, one of my
children sat down and had a go – slowly at first and then picking up
speed. The quick brown fox jumped over
the lazy dog several times. Then my
other daughter took a turn, bringing with her some poems to type out but
quickly getting irritated at the challenges of this new way of typing. Then I started writing nonsense Haiku as a
way of practising but also an entertaining pastime as I read them out and then
typed out new ones dictated by my younger daughter. We laughed and shared our ridiculous efforts
with the older child who had returned, recovered from her frustration and ready
to try again. I went out to do the
grocery shopping and when I returned my older daughter showed me the pages of
neatly typed poems she had produced (from a distance so I couldn’t actually
read their content). The day had passed
with no time spent on ipads or watching television, but instead time was spent
exploring something new (and old) and interesting. I think I might be onto something here. There is the appeal of all things ‘retro’ of
course but I think there is something else going on. The extra effort to create a typed document
seemed in itself to be satisfying. And
there is something significant in the nature of typing – that you have to live
with your mistakes – you can’t just backspace them away. They are there to remind you of your efforts;
that you made mistakes, that is wasn’t perfect, and the imperfection is there
to see. It doesn’t have the same
aesthetic appeal of Kintsugi – the
Japanese method of repairing broken vessels with gold – but it reminds me of
this. That imperfection and the visible
reminder of our mistakes can be accepted and even appreciated for what it
represents – the effort that it took to get it right.
*Here's what I typed...
