A Printer’s Fair in Fleet Street

Your welcome birthday letter makes me wonder again about just how long we’ve been writing to each other. I can’t remember: did our exchange begin during the writing of One Hand Clapping, or did you stumble on that windy journal sometime after it was completed? All I know for certain is that I was grateful then, and am even more so now. That we know each other entirely through words, without ever having met, with thousands of miles between us, is nothing less than a twenty-year miracle.

Congratulations on your confirmation. I have no doubt you will excel in your new profession, which, in truth, I think you’ve been practicing already a good long while. Helping others is clearly in your nature. You are a listener. And so now, go forth with your ears, with or without flat cap and walking stick, and do those little things each day that end in making a big difference. Do without doing. Rather, be what you do. And then do without being.

Regarding those who run for office, I agree completely. But I’d go a step further. I think reading Shakespeare for an hour each day with their feet up on the office table should be an actual requirement of office. For that matter, it should be a requirement for graduation from school, and parents should expect the same of their children. And obviously they must lead by example. Mobile devices should be books, not mind-numbing, government-snooping electronics.

I still marvel at how far you’ve progressed in the printer’s art. Ink, type, and all the old-fashioned tools of the trade — little by little, printing has become a natural form of expression, a second language; at the same time, it’s a form of communion with your forebears. Ink is in the blood — and perhaps even is the blood. The examples you sent are beautiful, the perfect blend of ink, paper, and poetry. Not only is it art, they’re something solid and tangible to leave behind, genuine artifacts.

A printer’s fair in Fleet Street, near St. Paul’s Cathedral. The sentence is music to my ears. I wish I’d been there. Then again, maybe I was. After all, you were there. And where one friend goes, another can’t help but go with him, just as you accompany me and my walking stick, Bruce, on our treks by the river.

By the way, did I mention that Bruce now claims his grandfather knew Sir Walter Scott? He might be pulling my leg, but somehow I’m inclined to believe him. Or I suppose I want to believe him. And speaking of belief, when I got up this morning, threw water in my face, and looked in the mirror, I realized that I believed I was not only here and alive, but that I was the person I expected to be, or was used to being. And so my day started with these assumptions; whereas, if I had really been paying attention, it would have started with only astonishment and cold water, not necessarily in that order. Bah — you know what I mean. Anyway, I was glad to be here. And, thanks to your letter, I’ve been glad ever since.

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