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I am happy to be in your inbox again. I wanted to share with you Mello’s excellent response to our last Sun Showers newsletter. I also highly suggest subscribing to his newsletter, Mello Today. It’s like a personal, curated guide to the intriguing, the joyous, the strange, the infuriating, the hilarious, the thought-provoking on the internet through the lens of Mello, who is one of my very favorite people in this world.
Every time I get his newsletter, I genuinely have to stop myself from replying with far too many exclamation points. So, yeah, give yourself the gift of Mello Today, too.
prompt #18
I’ve been thinking about rituals, lately. What are rituals that you have? Journaling? Meditation? Songwriting or singing? A daily walk? Prayer?
We all have something(s). Some for comfort, others for protection, others maybe just out of habit.
Reflect on those rituals and how they serve you—or maybe how they don’t? Create a new ritual, or honor a favorite. Sing its praises. What is ritual to you?
Set that timer for five minutes and let your fingers/pen guide you. When the time is up, take a break and go make some tea (protect that throat from whatever toxins are out in your world right now—whether fire or pollution, we’ve all got plenty to protect ourselves from).
Then, come back with your critic’s eye. Transform or hone your piece. And, if you feel like it, send it my way to share in the next newsletter!
ashley’s piece:
This is a ritual that feeds my soul: placing pen on paper and watching the ink transform an otherwise empty canvas into something new, vulnerable, exciting. I’ve always loved to write. Not just the act of making meaning, but also the literal process of shapes on paper. Sometimes I just watch the loops and bumps, valleys and hills, form. Half paying attention to what I want to say, and half enjoying the process by which I say it.
I somewhat recently began to use fountain pens. I felt wasteful for piling up so many plastic corpses over my lifetime. I have killed, and then subsequently disposed of, so many pens over the years. I’ve tossed them in the trash by the handful when cleaning out desks or old purses. I was always satisfied knowing I’d written them dry, knowing I hadn’t wasted a drop of ink, but have you ever looked at how small those ink tubes are? Compared to how large the plastic cases are? Ugh.
While reflecting on my impact and feeling guilty (Catholic guilt stains long after you’ve stopped going to church, friend), I looked up alternatives. There are metal “pencils” that supposedly last forever (but write with the lightest of spider touches—no, thank you—I like to leave dark marks). There are pencils made from fallen trees, and that is very cool, but I like ink and a façade of permanence. So I landed on ye olde writing utensil: the fountain pen. I jumped into the world of fountain pens and apparently it is wide and its proponents are particular (and some of them are willing to spend a shockingly large amount of money on some pens that I find genuinely ugly, but I shouldn’t judge).
The nice thing about fountain pens is you can buy these little reservoirs called converters and glass jars of ink, and then never have to buy ink-filled plastic tubes again. However, I did read some economist’s article about how it’s actually less wasteful to use disposable pens because fountain pens are made with more intensive materials (metals, I guess?). In his calculation, though, he accounted for keeping a fountain pen for about two years. As commenters pointed out, that’s absurd. Fountain pens last many years or a lifetime if they’re treated well. I’m obviously not there yet, but that’s my intention.
So I set up with a fountain pen Michael had previously given me (randomly given to him by a luthier friend who actually gives us lots of little things here and there, now that I think about it), for which I bought black ink, and then two other fountain pens (one for blue ink and another for experimental ink because I like bright colors—I’m going with green right now), and then finally a calligraphy pen with highlighter ink. And that’s it. I feel set for life. All I have to do is get ink when I run out, and, from what I can tell so far, these ink jars will take a long time to get through.
And now, every time I pick up one of my pens, I’m excited. They’re heavier than disposable Bics. They flow nicely, especially over smooth paper. Are they really that eco-friendly? I don’t know. According to that economist, no (can you tell I’m bitter?). But there’s something calming and mindful about unscrewing them when the ink runs low. Pausing, twisting the converter, dipping the pen into the ink, slowly refilling it, tapping the excess off the nib, wiping it clean, reconstructing the pen, and getting back into the writing. All of that feels purposeful—much more so than scribbling with a disposable pen ever did. The ritual makes the writing feel more special. I won’t say holy, although that would sound poetic— but just nice somehow. Whether I am writing a journal, newsletter, to-do list, groceries, whatever, there is an element of joy to this ritual. And even if the pens aren’t so eco-friendly, I have to think that anything I would spend so much focused time, so much care, on has got to count for something.