Le Pen

moving the needle the width of a fine tip pen

I don’t trust people who don’t have a favorite pen. Where is your attention? Do you not notice when something small makes the ordinary task into a joy?

Lately, I have been drastically limiting my social media, writing in notebooks, reading paperback books, and using other tangible, analogue tools to cope with anxiety and with opportunity. The world is a lot, and my best role is creation, not consumption, so for me, the pen is mightier than the screen. I was in a bookstore (yay, bookstores!) recently, buying books and a stack of spiral notebooks (yay, paper! yay spiral pads that lay flat! yay blue lines! yay doodles), when, lo and behold, on the checkout counter was a rack of Le Pens. My mother’s favorite pen was the Le Pen, a dainty, smooth, flowing micro-felt-tip pen. Precise. Acid-free for her art. I don’t think I have seen one in years. I had forgotten this small detail about my mother. Her pens. Red, blue, black, lilac, turquoise. They are so small and thin, perfect for my little, raccoon-like hands. I bought one in every color.

And as I write—for work as an impact producer (storytelling, group insights, facilitation, culture, community), for lists, for messages to my family on post-it notes, to finish my book, the things I need to remember in the middle of the night, the love notes, the reminders— I am using my Le Pens. And there she is, my rascally, creative, magical mom, in my raccoon hands. How can something so insignificant matter so much? This tiny, tiny pen is making a huge difference. I feel stronger. I feel like I did before my life life-ed me, before the car hit me, before I was sick, before we derailed democracy, before she was gone. The little lilac one makes me the strongest.

I know a pen is not going to fix everything broken, in or around me, but I think that anything that moves the needle, even a smidge, even just the width of a fine-point pen, is worth holding onto. Worth working with. Worth wielding.