A sacred hush filled the darkening room as a storm gathered outside. The air of the room
seemed to become more dense. The classroom perched in the south east corner of the stone
school building. The school sat like a lighthouse atop the hill as it kept watch over the entire 
neighborhood.

I Know 
the Letters are There

Copyright © 2001-2004
by Julie Jordan Scott

I am sure on that day a different sort of light
shone out the non-descript, institutional window
raining golden dust upon the intersection
of Bloomfield and Ridgewood Avenues.

In the back of the room my fingers dashed across a keyboard, pounding away at the manual typewriter as it spoke clankety clankety clankety ding! Zoom! I swiped the carriage with all the zest of the former girl's arm wrestling champion from Linden Avenue School.

Did the ceiling evaporate and a ray of light suddenly connect my hands to heaven?

Something had shifted. It had broken through the physical plane and into my being. I had the skill to type without looking at the keyboard thanks to the Tap Tapnick poster on the wall and hours and hours of diligent practice so I was able to scribe the words without looking at my hands.

I could close my eyes or stare straight ahead or above the chalk board and continue typing.  
I knew the letters were there.
There was never any question.

There were other children in the room tapping away at their machines. I know there was other activity. I remember Mr. Seymour from Team 5 walking into the room to visit with Mrs. Behrman, the typing teacher.

Right in the midst of the bustle and the buzz of thirty or so typewriters all clanking and dinging and swiping, I was not there at all.

All I had to do was connect my mind, soul and heart to my fingers and words burst forth. I was able to translate all the emotion that was rumbling through my early adolescent self onto the page so that the world of the Glen Ridge Middle School and beyond would be able to understand what it felt like
to feel so incredibly alive, so incredibly buoyant.

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From reading my words I knew they would be
able to understand what it meant to tap into
the power of the Divine while writing.

The Topic was simply "Music". The composer was for the first time a life force greater than my own.

I had tapped into the Zone, the Flow, the Space in the Center where everything is conceived, birthed and buried.

I knew the letters were there. 

Typing became a favored hobby. I would type for anyone who asked: I typed for my father's business. I typed reports for my siblings. I typed everything and anything. Sitting in my father's office into the night I typed and I typed and I typed.

I overheard him say to my mother "Julie hits the keys too hard."

I thought he was criticizing me.

In truth, he was simply observing me: the passion in my heart, the gift welling up from my soul and the inescapable call which beckoned me to type, to compose, to write, to be filled to overflowing.

I knew the letters were there.

*  My father bought me a manual typewriter that
summer.  He brought home a monstrous looking and
stunningly beautiful Royal typewriter which was sitting 
proudly yet unused on the shelf in my daughter's closet.

Reverently I received it, a secondhand machine
he found in the classified section of the newspaper.
I remember the first time its heaviness was
placed in my arms, a harbinger of the weightiness
of each of my babies as they would be placed
into my arms when they were born.

My hands slowly felt the keys, inspected the
ribbon, moved the carriage.

I knew the letters were there.

Today it called to me from its nest upon
my daughter's closet shelf.

I walked into her room, hands on my hips
as my eyes reached onto the shelf in wonder
as I remembered.

It was covered by a haggard, dusty, wrinkly
plastic cover proudly bearing the words
"Miller and Walsh Typewriter Co."

I lifted my treasure and its heaviness once again
surprised me. I gasped and gasped again,
surprised at the release of breath.

I took it into my office and the plastic cover
begged me to remove it so that I could see
my beloved friend. I happily obliged.

The surprisingly petite green keys smiled
up at me with expectation.

My eyes surveyed the machine and my hands
lightly got reacquainted with the texture of
the machine. Magic Margins. The settings still
almost identical to the settings I used in Mrs.
Behrman's classroom.

Tab Clear/Tab Set. All those features that I
still have challenges with using word processing
programs are all clearly and proudly displayed
on this miraculous device. The ribbon was askew,
dried and crackly like the inside of a peanut
whose inside has been exposed to air for a
long, long time.

The keys and the body were marvelously dust free.		Writing and smoking seem to go hand in hand in the public's imagination.  What does it give you though?  Stained fingers, jittery nerves, beady eyes with bloodshot veins and an anti-social outlook on life.  Can you quit smoking?  Probably not.  Some people try everything, even kicking themselves, and STILL can't quit.  For more insight into this stubborn problem, Click HERE.

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I carried the machine to its new place: one of
honor. It is now displayed like the work of art it is
in an important corner of my living room. Perched
in the north east corner of the my living room,
peering out the window, keeping watch over the
entire neighborhood.

It is like a lighthouse, gold dust scattering out
over the intersection of Alta Vista and La
Cresta Drive.

I know the letters are there.

======
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