Rosana's Ramblings
When I originally designed this website about my father in
the pre-blog era, I decided to include a page where I could
write whatever I felt like. I wrote three pieces and now I've
given the longer ones their own page.
Here's a short one:
Words
[I wrote this around 1983, when I was doing the exercises in
a wonderful book, Gabriele Lusser Rico's Writing the Natural
Way.]
My father was a man of many words. As he gave me a
definition for my homework, his pauses and intonations enhanced
his well-chosen words. He spoke authoritatively; he made
brilliant points. And by their numbers, textures, nuances, his
words conveyed an inner message: trust words. In words, there
is meaning. Words create meaning, show patterns, evoke
emotions. Trust words to take you to the innermost heart of
life.
He spoke well; he wrote well. I have postcards with strange
stamps, letters written on hotel stationery from Miami to
Tokyo, Sydney to Rome. His distinctive hand was tidy. He
remained with fountain pens even after the blotty ball-point
became ubiquitous. The fountain pens themselves ranged in
colors, textures, and size; and the inks he used were russet,
blue, green, black, red, the ink drying into shades. Shades of
ink, shades of meaning, shadows and bold points: my father
loved them all.
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Further ramblings are in my blog.
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