{"id":1295,"date":"2011-08-15T16:38:35","date_gmt":"2011-08-15T20:38:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beginnersheart\/?p=1295"},"modified":"2011-08-15T16:38:35","modified_gmt":"2011-08-15T20:38:35","slug":"clean-slate-past-ties","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2011\/08\/clean-slate-past-ties.html","title":{"rendered":"clean slate\/ past ties ~"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>This is my current journal — nothing fancy (I’m being a bit stingy using the beautiful rose-pink Italian leather journal a former student gave me :)). Just a black Moleskine. I like the blank pages — they beckon to me. Infinite possibilities ~ \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

But the pen is <\/em>something special. A gift from my generous, thoughtful sister-in-law. Her grandfather’s green celluloid Parker fountain pen. 14k nib, beautifully broken in already (and yes — you have to break in fountain pens :)) The ink just flows from it.<\/p>\n

If the blank pages are each a clean slate, suitable for a complete change of subject, voice, even heart, then the pen is like a ribbon that ties me oh-so-gently to the past. To history. To my husband’s family, so much\u00a0 my own after so many years…<\/p>\n

I collect fountain pens. At least I used to. Now, what used to be their appealing quirks seem over fiddley. I don’t like the way they blow up in my purse when I’m flying. Or run out of ink when I’m nowhere near a bottle of ink.<\/p>\n

So I use rollerballs instead. If you write a lot — and I do — \"\"<\/a>and actually like how it feels, a rollerball is verrry close to what writing w\/ a fountain pen feels like. But it’s nothing like writing w\/ your husband’s grandfather’s green celluloid fountain pen. It’s nothing like knowing this dear man, almost the stuff of saintly legend, held it in his hand and did his accounts, his letters, his doodling with it. More than 70 years ago…<\/p>\n

So today I’m writing w\/ sienna brown ink on the lines of the creamy pages in my journal. And thinking how grateful I am for small pleasures…The kind rife w\/ both possibility & history \ud83d\ude42 ~<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is my current journal — nothing fancy (I’m being a bit stingy using the beautiful rose-pink Italian leather journal a former student gave me :)). Just a black Moleskine. I like the blank pages — they beckon to me. Infinite possibilities ~ \ud83d\ude42 But the pen is something special. A gift from my generous,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":398,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,37,122,1],"tags":[11,1181],"class_list":["post-1295","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-buddhism","category-family","category-journaling","category-uncategorized","tag-beginners-heart","tag-britton-gildersleeve"],"yoast_head":"\nclean slate\/ past ties ~ - Beginner's Heart<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"This is my current journal -- nothing fancy (I'm being a bit stingy using the beautiful rose-pink Italian leather journal a former student gave me :)).\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2011\/08\/clean-slate-past-ties.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"clean slate\/ past ties ~ - 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Years spent living on the margins - in places with exotic names and food shortages - have left her with a visceral response to folks \u2018without,\u2019 as well as a desire to live her Buddhism in an engaged fashion. She\u2019s a writer and a teacher, the former director of a federal non-profit for teachers who write. She believes that if we talk to each other, we can learn to love each other (but she's still learning how). And she believes in tea. 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