A Typewriter in Bloom
Yesterday, while I was walking my eighteen month old granddaughter in her stroller at the end of a hot summer day, I spotted something so unexpected in a city yard that I stopped to take a picture. While my granddaughter expressed delight at a nearby bunny scurrying across the open yard, I spotted a vintage blue manual typewriter, its carriage surrounded by blooming flowers. I stopped, my breath growing shallow with excitement. It was so much more than yard art. It was a time capsule. A memory. A mirror.
I Want to Write
In high school, I kept a journal. In one entry, I wrote, with all the earnestness of a teenager discovering herself, “I want to be worthy of being a writer.”
My English teacher, Mrs. Green, read it and scribbled a note in the margin that stayed with me all these decades:
“Then you must write, and write, and write.”
And I did, although not as a profession, not with deadlines or contracts, yet because writing poured from somewhere inside me; from a quiet place of knowing and need.
That journal entry led to my first typewriter, a Christmas gift from my parents during my first year of high school, a Royal blue manual typewriter. The typewriter wasn’t expensive, yet it was mine. The keys were stiff, and mistakes were tedious, leading to much use of white-out and the monotonous job of backspace and retype. Still, it was sacred. They believed in me.
Mostly, I wrote poetry—messy, angsty, honest, and unfinished.
Later, when my father closed his office, we inherited his IBM Selectric. A marvel. With it came short stories, just as raw, but a little more structured. Then came college, travel, marriage, and children. Journals filled my suitcase. Essays filled spare moments. The dream persisted, quietly.
And Now I Write
Over time, my tools changed: WordPerfect, spellcheck, and Google Docs. So did my life. My children grew. My careers in IT and real estate had their seasons. The “someday” dream of writing never left. It simply waited for me to catch up.
Now, my writing life is different. I sit at a desk with a big screen monitor, a connected keyboard, and a plethora of tools. I write essays, memoirs, and fiction. I stay in touch with my writing groups and mentors established decades earlier. I joined new writing groups and networks.
I help others write their stories. And I write and publish my work, not in the margins of a journal, but with intention.
As my granddaughter chatted beside me on our walk, I smiled at that flower-filled typewriter. I thought of Mrs. Green. Of my teenage self. Of all the years between “I want to write” and “Now, I write.”
And I smile at the typewriter—
and for my granddaughter’s future dreams.
Dreams take time.
Tools improve.
Planted words bloom.