There are moments within our past that shape our vision. Going through my childhood photo albums, I catch a peek at Anna in the early grades, a basic girl who, if she remained alive, will not know how even during grade 4, she was pointing the right way to freedom of expression. There exists a lesson here links in handy for moms and dads and grandparents.
I’ve often wondered if Anna’s life could have taken another turn had she lived her early grades within the sixties if the ballpoint pen, replacing the fountain pen, dispensed with the aid of ink blotters in school. Kids of the fifties, we learnt writing hard way–with steel-nibbed pens which we dipped in ink pots and which invariably turned the writing experience right into a mud-bath. It took us months to learn the art of compromise: speed meant accidental globs and splotches; should you wanted in order to save time, choosing far wiser to experience the tortoise.
But Anna was not turtle. Her mind moved faster than light; she was figuring a means to Bali if we remained stuck within the grade 3 reader; within the fourth grade, when people with older siblings were all agog over Elvis, she can find nothing more passionate than Japanese prints.
I remember Sister Mary Michael, the composition teacher in grade 4, who told us that writing was an action of God which the writer would find his share of godliness within the holy trinity of pen, paper and blotter. With the three, the blotter was essentially the most indispensable. “Why?” we asked. “Good writing depends on the way you control the ink.” There is much else that would have to be controlled also, in accordance with Sister Mary Michael. Reading Anna’s essay on why she liked chocolates, Sister became very still and angular. She peered down with the child, her eyes blue and difficult above her spectacles. “Too many adjectives,” she snapped. “Too many words!”
When Anna looked over her, unmoved, Sister retrieved her pen. The nib drew an easy, little difference over Anna’s script; the blotter followed; there came more red lines, more words slashed away.
I watched Anna after she returned to her desk. She began writing, dabbing the blotter after her pen in true Sister Mary Michael fashion. For some time, it seemed as if Anna had learnt her lesson. However when I peered more closely over her shoulder, I pointed out that it had been the blotter which was absorbing her interest. She had dribbled a place on top right-hand corner with the sheet; she stuck the nib during the location and watched the darkness grow; a few details together with the nib and also the blotch had been a little bit of chocolate, its center dissolving right into a hole. Fascinated, I watched her work more blotches around the absorbent paper and much more dabs before the entire blotter changed into a sort of chocolate swiss-cheese.
Out of her desk came more blotter sheets. Instead of holes, she made lines this time, dark molasses lines dribbled and dripped almost spider fashion in one corner to the next; she paused just good enough to thicken the center stretch without breaking the flow before the entire sheet became criss-crossed with tubes of varying lengths and widths and also the blotter sat on her desk like a chocolate web.
It turned out a young form of Blotter Art Company, so distinctive it made flowing hair ascend to end. But Sister Mary Michael cannot quite observe that.
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