One Year Later
By H.G. Miller
A year ago, I wrote about typing.
So, why not now?
A few weeks ago, I was watching “The Lover” late at night on the Independent
Film Channel. Of course, I remember fast forwarding through the movie as a
hormone-enraged teen trying to find the naked parts, and to be honest, I was
sort of hoping to see those again. Alas, it is a movie that moves slowly, and
cable does not provide a fast-forward button, so I grew weary.
Something about the narrative nature of the film made me long for the days of
keeping journals and writing letters. So, I decided to repay a post-card I had
received from a friend with a good-old-fashioned letter. I busted out the
feather ink pen my mother had bought me some years ago, and I began to compose.
Soon enough, I discovered something: writing is hard.
My fingers were cramped. The ink was running everywhere. Every coherent though
I had was lost by time I'd finished the noun/verb predicate part of my
sentences. I toiled and toiled for what seemed like hours (maybe thirty-five
minutes) when I finally realized that I didn't even have the correct address of
the friend I was writing to.
“Lord,” I said to myself upon checking my address book, “She moved out of this
place while I was still in college.”
Whether the fact that I knew her web-page home address better than that of the
actual physical place she exists in the real world is a comment on society
today or not, the fact remained, I couldn't even mail her the letter I was
attempting to pen at the moment, anyway.
So, I turned on my trusty computer. The same one that came in the cow box that
still rests along side some old coats and a bottle of as-yet-unused antifreeze.
I revved the now-archaic machine up and began to type an old-fashioned email.
Ahh…
Typing. My one true love. Typing and playing guitar. Using my fingers to
manipulate instruments made by man in such a way as to create poetry. I love
the clickety-clack sound of the keys as they hammer down with each stroke from
my fingers. The firm snap of the space bar after I finish a sentence, nail the
period and move on.
Yeah… can you feel that?
Enter. Enter. (or, Return. Return, for you Mac enthusiasts)
A year ago, I had fallen out of favor with my fingers. I couldn't play the
instrument that is mine to play. I had strayed from my true passion in life. I
had put my focus on survival. I understand this must continue to happen from
time to time, but I have managed to keep up a consistent presence on this web
site since I started, and I am proud of that. Twice a month, I am hammering the
keys with the same vivacity that drove me as a teen-ager locked in the boiler
room our old house (whenever I couldn't get to those movies with the naked
parts in them, anyway), churning out prose by the pinwheel-paper reams.
Now, I throw my digitally-composed prose into HTML code so that those few who
choose can crawl across the world wide web and waste some time with me.
It feels good. Yes, it does.