Thoughts on writing

I am particularly prone to diving head- and heartfirst into a topic I for no particular reason stumbled across.

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(Archive of Lady Catherine de Turnips, entry 46-63-0-2)

My dearest friend,

Why thank you, my long-expected crow-centric public talk in a coffee shop in Hackney was… well, it would not be appropriate of me to characterise it as a “stellar” one — because by doing so, I would praise my own humble presence. It, however, brought me immense joy — and there is no stage small enough to NOT be nervous about.
Whenever I am to talk, my body inevitably betrays me: my eyes forget how to blink, my hands begin to ever so slightly shake (I hope that they shake ever so slightly, and not... dramatically), and some of my bodily functions assume, for no apparent reason, that I am training for an interstellar flight.

In essence: whenever I am to speak, I think that I should have been allowed to write, and that’s all.

If you ask me about any of my talks, my memory will keep only those details that I lately consider embarrassing: an awkward joke, a forgotten word, a feeling – a simple feeling – that I am losing the connection. I will definitely not be capable of retelling the very same talk. Sometimes, I might even start questioning its existence.

As you probably have already become perfectly aware, I am particularly prone to diving head- and heartfirst into a topic I for no particular reason stumbled across in my otherwise boring and, with no coquettish winking, genuinely simple life.
(Some people save lives. Some people cross continents. I have never been responsible for the former; as for the latter, sometimes, it was more of an irresponsibility for me to do so – even though, once again, I do understand that this sounds more playful than in fact it can actually be.)

So, today, while fiddling with my pen when we both encountered the plain sheet of paper (this very one, the one which has reached you in its already augmented final condition that I, for now, can imagine only vaguely), I thought of the process of writing.

Not about creativity (god, no!). Simple, physical, process.

What is writing? Technically, the process I am currently engaged in means using a tool to put a particular substance on a particular surface in a way that is assumed, by me, to be aligned with my intentions and, eventually, recognisable as being aligned by my addressee (yes, I’m talking about you, and only good things, as always).
Historically and, occasionally, nowadays, the surface can be used as it is, without extra ingredients beyond modification of its state (sometimes it is called “carving”). A knife and a wood wall. The snow and a stick. A raw clay plate and another stick (or the very same one).

As long as there is a result, nobody questions the process. A mental image of “a person sitting elegantly in an ambience of a stylish café which allows a perfect combination of a social environment and personal introspection” is not necessarily close to the truth (in my case, it's almost never the truth).

The result of my writing has to be relatively physically stable to, having reached the destination after a typical postal journey, be perceived as not dramatically changed to render the comprehension impossible. That’s why, for example, I cannot send you a pile of snow where I wrote, not without an effort, a poem of several lines. Still, most likely, we don’t assume that the object needs to survive the travel across the sea on its own.
In this particular case under our consideration, there are also certain limitations on the thinness, dimensions and overall volume of the result because it is intended to fit into an envelope.

(Let us remain on an everyday level without reframing the envelope in a more abstract way as, for example, “a sheet of paper folded in a specific fixed manner with some edges securely attached to each other, yet with an opening on one side that can be securely closed”. And, obviously, don’t get me started on the address conventions and postcode wars.)

Beyond that, there is no particular limit.

There is no regulation on the shape of my Os and Ps (or whether I should definitely use them). If it is the paper we are talking about (yes, we are), we don’t particularly question its smoothness, texture, weight, and colour (as long as it is more or less contrasting to the substance – simply put, my ink). Conventionally though, the paper tends to be closer to different shades of white-adjacent hues; and ink is mostly black, blue, or brown.

Years and years ago, one very fine December day, when the pavements of Istanbul were unusually dry, the air was crystal clear and calm, and the plane leaves were tenderly flowing towards the paths of the Gülhane Park, I was minding the stall of my friend Tolga, the calligrapher. Truth be told, it was less of a stall and more of a repurposed and completely occupied municipal bench with a tiny table in front of it.
Notebooks, bound by Tolga himself (even though some of his stylistic decisions were mildly questionable to my preference). Decorative plates ready to become even more decorative. Keychains — simple roundels of wood from an unknown tree — that will soon bear somebody’s name, or “miracle”, or “love”. Just one word, mostly. Markers, the key instruments of the craft, some of them might be dry already. Reed pens that I wasn’t even allowed to try to sharpen. Piles of paper, special and not so much. I had to sit on the backrest, like a red hen, surrounded by all the paraphernalia of belles lettres (literally).
Hagia Sophia, to the right-hand side, was still there.
The sky, occasionally, was full of the lament of the seagulls that always makes me feel so hopeful.

Have I told you that years and years ago, even earlier, when I was unquestionably young, I almost became a calligrapher’s apprentice? My mentor — another one — spent evenings observing my attempts not to be lost on yet another turn of “S”. At some point I became comfortable enough to be brave — and, after that, whichever choice I made was not approved.
Paper? Not smooth enough. Loops? Even less.

That is how, with all my appreciation of craftsmanship, my penmanship ended up as peculiar as it can be — and, sometimes, cannot be — now. Even though I can admire, from not very much afar, the visual beauty of someone’s letters, I embraced the accidental chaos of my own creations, if they do the job.
(Especially for the letters of my own.)

I guess that it’s safe to put this accidental meditation to an end.
Rest assured – I will do my best to keep my next letter on the same level of observational precision you are normally so fond of, but on a different level of observational preoccupation.
Please have a nice, well-deserved rest this evening.

Yours,
C.