book_of_ink ovenbird A leisurely twenty minute walk from my house there is a dangerous abyss, into which I regularly fall, in the shape of a supremely delightful stationery and tea shop. I tell myself I won’t go in, and then I do, called, in no small part, by The Book of Ink. The Book of Ink is curated by the smartly dressed proprietor (a man who clearly spends his morning sipping carefully steeped oolong and writing daintily in a journal with precision writing instruments) and contains hundreds of ink swatches on thick creamy paper, tucked reverently into plastic pockets. When I first bought a fountain pen with an ink converter (a moderately priced Lamy Safari that has served me faithfully for years) I did not expect to also become a collector of inks (I clearly have not met myself or I would have predicted this right from the get go). In any event, wandering into the shop and asking to see the ink samples feels like going to some ancient apothecary and asking for potion ingredients. The book is pulled out from under the counter and I am allowed to flip through until, inevitably, I decide that my writing would be dramatically improved if I could do it in a dusty grey Wearingeul ink containing a subtle red shimmer called “A Room of One’s Own.” I carry the small bottle home like it’s an illicit drug and sink myself into the ritual of cleaning the converter and siphoning ink into the cartridge like some Victorian doctor preparing a syringe of morphine. My mind is already settling into an ink induced flow state, which translates itself into cursive looping languidly across the page. Cursive is a code no longer taught to children, so I now possess a dying skill, a hold over from the “olden days” of my youth (so much further away now than I would wish). I don’t know if an ink invoking the genius of Virgina Woolf affects my own compositional prowess in any measurable way, but I continue to pursue the ritualistic high which leaves my fingers stained with the evidence of my imprudence. 250520 what's it to you? who go blather from