About the fountain pen...

April 25, 2013

If you've been reading my blog for a while you'll know that my logo has always been a daisy shaped flower and I've used Rudbeckia as my icon for ages.

Rudbeckia? If you're a non-gardener, Rudbeckia is commonly called Black Eyed Susan or Brown Eyed Susan.

I wrote about my FIMBY flower in this post. I love Rudbeckia. It's both beautiful and not particularly fussy about its growing conditions. (And yes, you can read things into that, about the kind of person I want to be.)

Four years ago or so, at the time I got serious about my blogging intentions, I was a very active gardener and so I gravitated to that flower image as an icon for my blog. It seemed like a good representation for what I wanted to communicate. This was a blog about my back yard (literally and figuratively). And flowers were a big part of my back yard.

Life has changed a bit since then. There are no flowers in my yard, except for the wild daisies that grow along the road.

For this life season, gardening as a hobby and activity has been largely replaced with adventuring. We have adopted a semi-nomadic lifestyle and investing in a garden is no longer an interest of mine given our frequent moving and traveling.

But I'm still the same person, the same mother who wants to share about the fun in my back yard. A writer who wants to tell a story. I think we all want to tell our stories. I am not unique in this regard.

I started calling myself a writer a few years ago.

At first that felt strange because I was hung up on writers being published authors. Or, at the very least, having studied English in post-secondary school. I have one year of university English as a requirement for my Education degree. I remember none of it except my heavy Norton's Anthology, full of stories I mostly disliked.

And as for being a published author, well, anyone can publish these days (for better or for worse). That measure hardly matters anymore.

I'm not a writer because I have training in writing or because I know how to diagram a sentence. In truth, I've been working with a grammar coach to learn how to write better.

I'm a writer because I write. Because almost every day I wrestle thoughts into some sense of coherence with the written word. And the more I do it, the better I become and the better I want to become.

I've grown into my writer skin the same way I've grown into my mother skin, simply by doing it. And realizing that calling myself a writer has nothing to do with earning money from writing, though it's nice when I do (smile).

When re-designing FIMBY and thinking about a graphic I could use to express my message and vision for this space, my fountain pen became the clear winner.

Damien gifted me this pen for my 36th birthday. Probably my most expensive birthday gift from him to date. (We're not expensive birthday gift people.)

my birthday gifts from last year

Damien is a pen aficionado. He loves good design and function, expressed in beautiful ways. And so he's always had a thing for fountain pens (and Japanese aesthetic and pretty much anything well-designed and beautiful).

When I met Damien I used the cheapest pens and pencils I could find. After years of being married to my engineer husband I have developed a "thing" for good writing instruments also. But still, a fountain pen was a bit of stretch for me.

Fountain pens are particular. They take some getting used to. They are a wee bit arcane and even high brow. I wasn't sure a fountain pen was for me, down-to-earth girl that I am.

Damien has convinced me otherwise. I am now the fountain pen user in the house. Damien writes with real ink so rarely these days he is now the one grabbing for any old pen in the jar.

But for me, only my fountain pen will do. It took me at least eight months to get used to it. The ink flows differently than the Pilot rollerball pens I was accustomed to.

I dropped my pen once, on the nib. Those of you who use quality pens can wince now. I had to buy a replacement nib. It cost me as much as 15 extra-fine Pilot rollerballs, sold separately.

But now that I have used my pen for over a year, gotten over the initial "bleeds", and learned how to take care of it properly (regularly refilling the ink, storing it properly, and not dropping it), this pen is mine. It's mine in a way that a rollerball pen could never be, used for some months and tossed in the garbage.

I own this pen in the way I own my writing.

I have gained the privilege of calling it mine by taking care of it and making some mistakes along the way. But mostly I call this pen mine because I use it - every day.

FIMBY is the place I write our family story.

In our culture, a pen (or quill) is an time-honored symbol for writing. A FIMBY fountain pen felt like a good fit.

I've worked hard at learning to use a fountain pen. I've worked hard at writing and learning how to blog.

Laurent drew the pen graphic for me based on my own red fountain pen. My son, bringing this idea to life for me, from his own creativity and genius, feels like such a good fit for my blog. A blog about family life, homeschooling, and creativity.

My pen writes love notes, Christmas cards, and grocery lists. It flows through my journal and scribbles post-it notes for the bathroom mirror.

My pen tells a story and so does this blog.

by Laurent Tougas

(Laurent does private art commissions. Contact me if you're interested.)

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