Old things aren’t my thing. I have a more minimalist, contemporary aesthetic.
I always want the latest, shiniest, most advanced thing.
Not vintage. Not anything from the past.
Though I appreciate their craftsmanship and their history. And of course their preciousness.
A few years ago, I created a studio in my home.
I bought a DreamBox.
I started crafting.
Creating art.
Writing.
I came to understand just how much I love words and letters and sayings and quotes.
I especially love them in typewriter font—or better yet—from an actual typewriter.
The typewriter’s tap is beautifully imperfect. Personal. Inky. Art.
So, I bought a vintage typewriter.
Here’s to my extensively used, slightly scuffed, manual, portable, 1960s-era Royal Red Custom typewriter.
I use it in my crafts, and I love that it types my words with imperfection—that’s the beauty of it.
I’m giddy to write where others left off.
I imagine all the words and feelings—legal documents, poems, wills, term papers, business letters, and love sonnets—and all the other communication this beauty surely helped to send out into the world.
Even bills tell a story.
But I wonder…
Were tears shed, spreading the ink like watercolor across the page, or perhaps smudged with mascara across the plastic keys?
Did a schoolboy write his admissions essay and fulfill a dream?
I wonder what was happy and what was hard.
What led to triumph, or to catastrophe?
What words changed the lives of others?
Lives lived through this machine. A fly on the wall has nothing on the stories created with the keystrokes tapped here—the literal thoughts inked from its striker.
I’m in love. I’ve named her Zosie.
The name feels:
• vintage
• artistic
• affectionate
• slightly bohemian
• sassy
• strong
So, yeah. I bought vintage.
❦
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