It was a magic place, that room across the hall. Filled with music, muffled telephone conversations, and typing, lots of typing late at night. And then, all of a sudden it went silent. The day that Missy, my older sister, flew down to Mexico to spend her last semester of high school with her friend Amy.
The records were still stacked 10-high on the turntable changer, and all of her winter clothes still hung in the closet. But the desk was invitingly clear. Papers had been filed or discarded, books were back on the shelves. All that remained was the electric Smith Corona, perched on the vast expanse of desktop.
The desk itself was an old typesetter’s desk. Much higher than a normal desk. I had to climb up onto the special chair to even see the entire desktop. And once up there, I was in another world. A world that revolved around the typewriter.
I remember venturing into Missy’s now vacant room, once a forbidden place unless I’d been invited. I flipped through the records, admiring the record covers. I opened all the little drawers in the back of the desk. But the ultimate temptation was the typewriter. The barely audible hum when I flicked it on. The magic CLACK when I pressed on a key.
I began to explore the typewriter, first typing random letters, just to get a feel for it. Then resurrecting what I remembered from the touch-typing unit our class had in third grade: A S D F G H J K L ;. Yea, I could do this.
And eventually I spent time every night just typing. I’d sit down with no direction, no specific idea. Just let my fingers find the worlds. It was fun. It felt rebellious. I soon let go of capitalization (too much trouble). And punctuation made sudden entrances and exits. But since I owed these pages to no one, I granted myself all the freedoms my classwork forbade. Sentence fragments. Unending paragraphs. I let myself type the way I spoke; I let myself type the way I listened. And soon the typewriter was again singing late into the night.
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