My pen fancy has struck me again, and I've been having fun with my pens and inks, partly because suddenly I have found myself inundated with correspondence and just things that requires actual writing, as opposed to e-mails and other modern technologies. There are quite a world out there that you can designate as your combination, with nib widths, ink colours, and paper.

For example, I use moleskine for my notes. A red cahier, actually, and I use Platinum Preppy and Lamy EF to write in them. My colleague uses Rhodia and Pilot. Quite a different end-product (mine definitely looks more feminine, hands down). Mine’s a bit more colourful, owing to quite a few Preppies I have at my arsenal.

It’s been a while since I’ve written this much by hand. Sure, I take my notes by hand, mark papers by hand, but they’re jotting, really, not much more than a few sentences at a time. But with these, letters included, they’re proper writing, with sitting down, thinking, picking up a pen. It’s a rather methodical process: sit down, select the ink (or make sure the ink is loaded), ponder what to write, place the ink eradicators and whatnot around, uncap the pen, begin writing. It’s a bit different from snatching a Bic from the table and jotting a few notes.

Writing (not typing, but writing), as I’ve recently rediscovered, is a rather thoughtful, meditative process. I’ve written letters – constantly, even, as Mr “I want to remain nameless” and I have kept steady correspondence across the Atlantic and across the continent for the past seven years – but only recently have I closely examined the actual process of writing, both mental and physical. Unlike word processing, you can’t really just hit backspace and delete the sentence you wrote, so you tend to get more careful as you write. Word selection becomes a little more important; penmanship becomes a little more of a concern; and unlike e-mails, there is an actual physical process of destroying letters, as opposed to just hitting delete, so each word becomes heavier.

Your emotions do show up in your penmanship. When I am distressed, my handwriting becomes a little more erratic; when I am calm, they are neater, more regular. My ink colour selection also reflects my mood; when I am feeling prim and proper, I tend to select blue; when I am feeling fanciful, brighter colours show up.

I think, as we progress through technology, we are losing more and more personal touches. Letters became phone calls, which became e-mails and instant messaging; and severing ties became easier and easier, until all it took were two buttons to hit delete. Cards became replaced with facebook messages and e-cards, which get lost in the myriad of electronic information we get bombarded with. Relationships between two people can be quickly forgotten with a few clicks, the past sealed away.

Is this a good thing? Perhaps. Perhaps it is a good thing to be able to forget the past and seal away previous acquaintances. But I am glad Mr Nameless had written me letters all this time; I’d be cleaning my room and stumble upon the bundle of letters he wrote, and I’d remember the ache. Once upon a time, he and I were happy. Those moments were forever crystallised in those penned words, and it’s much harder to rip up letters than hit delete on a phone.

Mr Nameless has taken a step further (oh dear). He has decided that pen nib, his penmanship (or a lack thereof…), and his ink colours don’t quite identify the sender as himself. And so, enter sealing waxes.

Originally, as we know, sealing waxes were designed for hand-delivered letters, to prevent tampering. It’s a bit more ceremonial these days, but I think he wants an ending action to his letter-writing. After all, he writes to me the most, and apparently, he has a sort of a ritual; a nice cup of tea, a pen, an ink colour selected out (although it’s usually blue… different shade of blue, perhaps?), good writing pad in front of him, looking out the window, music filtering out from the speakers. Writing is reaching out to the recipient through pen and paper, and the paper is actually something the writer has touched, felt; it’s different from a printed out e-mail. It is akin to what Cyrano said, in Edmond Rostand’s play Cyrano de Bergerac:

Un baiser, mais à tout prendre, qu'est-ce ?
Un serment fait d'un peu plus près, une promesse
Plus précise, un aveu qui veut se confirmer,
Un point rose qu'on met sur l'i du verbe aimer;
C'est un secret qui prend la bouche pour oreille,
Un instant d'infini qui fait un bruit d'abeille,
Une communion ayant un goût de fleur,
Une façon d'un peu se respirer le cœur,
Et d'un peu se goûter, au bord des lèvres, l'âme !

Not quite a kiss, our letters, but a promise all the same; a hug stuffed in an envelope, a kiss lovingly tucked into a page. And when he finishes tucking that hug into the paper, apparently he wants to seal it with wax and a seal that says, “it’s from me”.

And so he has his seal, and he has his samples of wax. He’s trying to decide between midnight blue, forest green, and silver. He’s leaning towards green but he also likes silver. I’ve told him to maybe mix both. He’s pondering. Another mark left on paper to tell me that he’s in my life, and that we share moments, even when we are apart.

Beautiful, isn’t it?