In Anticipation of a Typewriter
If the revolution is typewritten, then I will type out all the ways that it doesn’t have to be this way and the revolution will be slow, misspelled, and hard to copy.
*NOTE* My friend has refurbished this typewriter for me. What an honor it will be to begin typing on it knowing the care he has invested in it! After he sent me the pictures of it, I set out to write what I would first write on the typewriter when it arrives. Below is what I wrote:
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If the revolution is typewritten, and I plan to be part of the revolution, what is the first thing the staccato sounds of my fingers punching keys will announce? And where should I type it out? I’ve never used a typewriter for writing but it seems the machines have a soul all their own, each one unique, aging, full of a certain kind of wisdom. Perhaps this means I cannot know the first thing I will announce as a cog in the revolution because I have not yet met my partner. And my partner is soon to arrive, an Olympia SM9 Deluxe, fashioned in what was “Western Germany,” circa some time after 1969.
This typewriter has seen some things. Has already been part of the revolution, is part of the revolution, and deserves some say in the ways we’ll be revolting together. To be born into, come of age, and peep the reunification of a divided nation is to know a form of revolution first hand. What did this machine experience? When did it make its trek to the United States? Whose hands have worked its keys?
If the revolution is typewritten, and I plan to be part of the revolution, I will type about how it doesn’t have to be this way. “It” is doing a lot of work here, because we might not agree on what it encapsulates. The “it” might be dogs without homes or children without homes or the elderly without homes. The “it” might be the layers of racial hierarchy exacerbating the racial wealth gap, keeping marginalized and non-white folks beneath an unattainable vision of daily living in which they can be fully themselves even as our nation keeps making the claim that everyone should be granted the right to pursue happiness. The “it” might be the price of eggs.
If the revolution is typewritten, then I will type out all the ways that it doesn’t have to be this way and the revolution will be slow, misspelled, and hard to copy. But it will have a unique sound and a personal flair and it might make a change even if it lacks efficiency. Before even participating in the revolution I’m learning this is the thing about a revolution, we can only hope change is coming, but we won’t know until we type it out.
