This morning, after weeks of cleaning and re-cleaning, I think my pen finally forgave me.

Mom may have known she was raising a little geek when in 1959 she asked me what I wanted for Christmas, and I told her I wanted a fountain pen.   I was six, and I’d seen a teacher using one and was fascinated by it.   I got my fountain pen, a Sheaffer sized for a child’s hand, and I’ve been writing with them ever since.

Fountain pens are archaic, fussy, finicky things.   But the graphic artist in me (I still draw and sketch with the “traditional” tools of pencil, pen and paper) loves their tactile feel.   And they have one supreme advantage over all other handwriting implements: they will, over time, break in to your particular way of holding a pen…customizing themselves to your own unique handwriting.   The disadvantage though is you cannot then ever loan yours to someone else, particularly if you write with a light touch and they with a heavy one, because the moment they us your pen it will never be right in your hand again.   Ever.   Ask me how I know.

They have other disadvantages, mostly being that they’re high maintenance things.   You are always cleaning and refilling them…a process that becomes a ritual after a while.   And they tend to form a fondness for a particular brand of ink, so should that brand become unavailable, or changes its formulation, your pen will complain bitterly in its own way (skip… skip… skip…) for weeks if not months, until you hit on a substitute it finds acceptable.   Some weeks ago, having run out of my pen’s preferred brand (Parker, black) and not finding any at the usual places, I let a pen store salesman talk me into a substitute.   I won’t name it here, each individual fountain pen is unique enough that what doesn’t work in one can work very well in another regardless of make.   The pen that shipped from the factory right beside mine might adore that brand of ink for all I know.   But it took me weeks of cleaning and re-cleaning my pen to get it to forgive me.   Yes, yes…I promise to feed you the Exact ink you want dear…

It’s a Mont Blanc 149.   I bought it in 1979 for a figure I was embarrassed to say to anyone and still am somewhat.     It took me months of saving to be able to afford it…at the time I was a mail room clerk for a data processing company…and what is worse, on a scale of 1 to 10 my handwriting is 11 in awfulness.   But my hands are finicky about their tools and my drawing/writing hand knew…it knew…the moment it held one at the Fahrney’s on F Street in Washington…that was The One.   I go through the technical pens I use for drawing like crazy because they don’t make them to last, and the nibs wear oddly enough that it doesn’t take long for me to feel uncomfortable drawing with one.   Wish I could find a good source for nibs for the dip pens I used to use…but don’t get me started…

Some years after I bought the 149 I bought a Parker Duofold that I like very much, and still occasionally use.   But…the 149 is My Pen.   I checked recently and the thing sells for Many hundreds more now then it did back then so I’m not sure I would buy one now.   Like the Mercedes alas, it’s a status symbol.   But that is not why I bought it.   Materialism is when you want something just to have it…as if the having of it makes you too an object of worship.   An enthusiast uses what they buy, takes pleasure in the experience of human excellence.   You are not the worshiped, but the worshiper.   It’s not commerce, it’s art.