I have a loupe on my desk. Two, in fact. I bought them for examining rocks up close, but they have other usages. The other day I wanted to post a comment on a friend’s blog. Of course, WordPress still doesn’t recognize me after thirteen years, so I had to enter my password. I write small. I couldn’t make out my own scrawl, so out came the loupe. Problem solved. (But WordPress, please! Don’t you remember me?) Here’s a true story. When I was in college I had very little money. In fact, losing three dollars one day sent me into a week-long depression that I still remember. I bought college-ruled notebook paper for writing reports (before typing them up). And I wrote three lines per ruled line on the page. I dearly wish I’d kept some of those symbols of my extreme frugality. Growing up poor will do that to you.
Thing is, I never outgrew writing small. My handwriting is minuscule and my eyes aren’t as young as they once were. The loupes date from when I was teaching and I was free to pursue my love of rocks. The glacial til of Wisconsin brought up interesting things and some locations in the state (I joined the Wisconsin Geological Society) had wonderful possibilities for collecting. I’ve never told any movers, since what happened at Nashotah House, that, yes, those boxes do contain rocks. I’ve always had plenty of interests outside what my career happened to be. Even now what passes for a career is just a job. Life offers too many other things to explore to limit myself to one.
Indeed, if we had a Universal Living Wage or something like that, my job would be “writer.” At least in this phase of my life it would be. Of course, if justice were anything but a joke I’d still be teaching. And I’d probably still be hunting rocks. My wife puts up with me bringing home unusual ones that I find. The earth is full of gifts and it seems a shame to squander things. Even paper. Especially paper. It takes a lot of resources to produce it. I may not write three lines per line anymore—wide-ruled pages look absolutely criminal to my eye—but I still write small. The things we learn when we’re young often come back to us as adults, reminding us of the freshness with which we first faced the world. It seems our initial assessments may have been correct after all.