Clickty-Clack

There's a certain romance about a typewriter. A certain satisfaction in each clickty-clack, inking letters, then words, then whole sentences onto a page. A resonance, a permanence, a sense of finality.

These days you must train your ear to hear the whisper of the computer keys. Backspace and Delete keys are too accessible. They cause one to question, to doubt. "Is that really how you want that to read?" "Could the wording be more pleasantly arranged?" Unless you click that print icon, there is nothing to show for an hour's work. A day's. A year's.

I was a teen when typewriters became obsolete, too young to understand the full significance of that change. Computers ushered in a time of super intelligence, of knowledge at the click of the mouse, of drive-thru information. I admit, I am as chained to my computer as the next person, and yet, I cannot help but be wistful for that time, not so long ago, when writing was a process that stimulated all the senses, the smell of the ink, the sound of the keys, the sight of crisp pages piling higher toward completion...

The golden age of the typewriter.