Ever since my love for typewriters ignited around six weeks ago, and I publicly admitted to it, I received my fair share of skepticism and disbelief. It wasn’t just of the people around me, I also felt quite ashamed and embarrassed myself, having praised minimalism as a true life changer. Which I still believe, by the way.
After having had a really bad day, full of bad emotions, including an argument with my kids’ daycare teacher, I drove home thinking: „Something has to change, something has to go, I need more time and space. It has to be the typewriters, something has to go, might have to be them.“
To backtrack a little bit, it was the day after I had driven to another city to pick up three typewriters someone gave away for free. One of them was a Smith-Corona Silent from 1949, which I really wanted. The other two were really big desktop versions with extra-long carriages. All of them were dirty and clogging up our mudroom.
In my impulsive bad mood, I thought I just donate the big ones, and use the time I would spend on cleaning them for something more useful. But then I started to clean my new old brown Smith-Corona Silent, and it all disappeared. All those flustered thoughts and feelings. I discovered the nametag of the previous owner, and after asking google a quick question, found out, she was a special education teacher for over 40 years, and one of the first two African American women hired in her school district. How amazing is that? I cleaned and fixed her typewriter, and tried to imagine what it must have been like to have just bought it new. Way back when owning a manual typewriter was as necessary as owning a computer. At the same time, my six-year-old son was by my side, helping me clean the typewriter and offering useful advice. It’s our thing. Typewriters. I think. No one else in my family seems to appreciate the sound mechanics and metallic beauty as much as the two of us.
I ended up cleaning the other two as well that night. One I dropped off at our local consignment store, clean and working with a fresh ribbon. I brought the other one, a Royal FP Special Edition from 1957 with an unusually large font without serifs, to work and set it up in a communal room with a note inviting people to type away while being mindful of the others around them.
During the whole process, which does feel like work at times, I felt free and happy. Light even. I didn’t use the Internet. I didn’t check social media or procrastinate in other ways. I was in the flow together with my son, undistracted. We immersed ourselves in the moment, spending quality time together while cleaning and fixing an object to find and preserve its story.
How is that not minimalist?
My husband just proofread all this, like every week. But this time, he did disagree with me.
He: It’s good, but I do take issue with one thing.
Me: What’s that?
He: That is not minimalism. What you wrote is not minimalism. There is a definition for that. I really don’t like it when people make it to what they want.
Me: That’s not true. The definition is fluid. What about this? [And I changed the last sentence to: „How is that not minimalist, at least mental minimalism?“]
He: Ok, I can see that.
Me: And that’s what I had in mind when I started this post. Typewriters are there for you to only do one thing. Or maybe two, you fix them and you write. And when you write, you can really only do this. Write. Unlike when you write with a computer, you have so many other things you are doing instead of actually writing.
He: But then, if you have only one thing to do one thing, then you need so many other things for the other stuff. How is that minimalism?
Me: But that’s the point! There are so many things you do with your computer that you don’t need to do at all.
He: Right.
Me: That’s what I had in mind when I started this, then I trailed off a little. But that’s what’s minimalist about typewriters. They eliminate the unnecessary. Maybe I need to add a paragraph.
He: Yeah.
Me: Maybe I should just write down our conversation.
He: Yeah, maybe.