Two years ago I was in a salvage store in Northwest Seattle when I came across an old, familiar face. It was weathered and its condition was questionable at best, especially for the price. It was difficult to justify bringing it home with my limited knowledge about its state and what it would need to regain its health, so I left it there on the small table near the aisle where it sat. But I called my dad soon after and asked: did my grandmother still have the old West German Olympia typewriter that my brother and I played with when we were kids? After checking with her he let me know that the typewriter was long-gone. This was disappointing news although not entirely unsurprising. Why keep a typewriter that no one’s used in a few decades?
During the Christmas and New Year holidays my brother sat next to me at the kitchen table on the first evening of my acquaintance with Maggie. I mentioned to him that part of my joy in discovering this beautiful girl was that I’d asked before about the old Olympia only to be told that it was gone. He flatly refused to believe it and told me he didn’t think that could possibly be true. While I saw his point, what reason did I have to think my grandmother was mistaken? I’d already given into disappointment about it two years back, but he wasn’t so easily convinced.
Days later I found myself back in my old bedroom hunting for a mystery suitcase that my grandmother had a vague notion might be in there but she couldn’t be sure. The only place I hadn’t looked that could hold something suitcase sized was behind the door of a child-sized wardrobe. When I opened it to peer inside, I couldn’t believe my eyes. There, stored with an old board game and other items that didn’t even register (I was too excited to take much else in), was the old Olympia - the one I’d been told was long since gone!
With my breath caught in my throat I squeezed to lean into the tiny wardrobe. An old board-game sat atop it and I removed it and set it aside. It took some doing to lift the heavy typewriter out from the odd angle at which I’d approached the wardrobe, but soon I had it in my arms. With the board-game re-situated where I’d found it and everything else in its place, I delightedly carried the typewriter from the room and happily announced my discovery to my grandmother and Benjamin.
Although I explained to each of them that this is the typewriter that taught me to love typewriters, I still suspect that neither really understand the love I feel for these machines - all the hope and possibility they contain and the soundtrack of cadence and rhythm that creates the backdrop against which to work. It’s the feel of pressing the keys and pushing the bar back and forth. Sounds of hammering strokes and dinging bells. To be sure, I’m grateful for my little laptop - it does everything I ask of it - but sometimes only a typewriter will do. Typewriters scratch an itch that laptops can’t hope to reach.
