Every week, the AWM is excited to bring you stories written by our visitors in our Story of the Day exhibit. Check back weekly for new stories, and visit the Museum to try out our typewriters and possibly be featured here!
This letter to the typewriter it was written on is adorable!
June 22, 2017
Dear Typewriter,
I think you might be a little jammed. But that is a good sign that you are being well-used, right?
I don’t have anything too precious to say except that I am glad you are still around although I wish you had a delete key and autocorrect. But I do like feeling the imprint of letters through your keys. And of course your pretty little ding.
I was going to use an exclamation mark but do not see one…I guess you don’t want to get too excited. I don’t blame you. You’ve got work to do. Like telling me when to space and shift and all that.
I have a Royal at home like you. Olympia, that maroon typewriter diagonal from you (more modern she seems) is like a Jaguar but you are like a Rolls Royce.
I hope that is not sexist of me to use car analogies to compare typewriters. Or machinist. Also, full disclosure, I know nothing about cars or typewriters.
But I do like to write. A lot..ah, right, no exclamation point. People were much more serious during your time, huh?
Anyway, I see I am running out of space.So I shall end here. I had lots of fun.
Thank you American Writers Museum. You rock.
Some thoughts on truth:
There is no truth except the truth we make for ourselves. It can be said that one creates his own destiny, but destiny itself is the wrong word to use. It is truth, not the vicissitudes of some all knowing force that we see in our future. It is that which we make for ourselves that we need to put in the forefront.
Even simple things can act as an anchor for memories:
In the house where I grew up, my bedroom was on the second floor. Outside my window there was a tree. I don’t know what kind of tree it was, but it is what I remember most about living in that room. All I could see out that window was seen through the branches and leaves of that tree. My whole world was filtered through it.
As a child, it was part of Middle Earth. It was what would save me from breaking a leg if I ever had to jump out of my window in the event of a house fire. Later I imagined climbing down it for an imagined rendezvous. Or perhaps a crush would climb up it to me.
Now it may be gone. I don’t know. I haven’t been home in years. But I bet it’s still there, and the child or teenager who lives in my old room is seeing the world through its leaves, too.
It’s their tree now, but it will always be mine.