The roses, among other things. Ruby writes about taking the time to enjoy little things that go too often ignored:
“In this fast-paced rat race which we have obligingly enlisted ourselves (hey, some of us even took postgraduate degrees for added ‘speed’), we hardly realize we have gotten hopelessly caught in the constant blur of the panic. It has become part of our lives.”
“Do you remember the smell of a newly sharpened pencil? All that keyboard tapping, those colorful gel and felt-tip sign pens, why use pencils, right? Well, next time you’re at the bookstore, pick up a sharpened pencil and give it a good whiff. Ahh, nostalgia.”
When we think of things that we check out when we slow down, why is it that we tend to think of pencils? Because they are worth the extra time, like French press coffee, or is it something more?
[Image J.G. 2005.]
Hi, my name is Ben and I’m a pencil sniffer. “Hi Ben” the PSA (pencil sniffers annonymous) group says to me.
To me, it seems a matter of taking delight in the everyday and overlooked. (I think back to my contemplation of the Camel pack design when I was a cigarette smoker.)
The most wonderful pencil aroma I’ve ever experienced was from post-WWII Castell 9000s. I bought them at an old office supply store in the early 1990s, still in their metal tins, with “Leads Imported from American Zone” stamped on each pencil. (“They never sold,” said the storekeeper.) The smell of that sharpened cedar–all I can say is that it was like no other pencil I’ve ever used. I’m guessing that it must’ve been red cedar.