PENCILS

Is there anything weird about the fact that I like to sharpen pencils? Or about the fact that I like pencils and want to write something about them?

And after all why not? “Nothing Special” is my blog and my space so I am free to use it as I please for any purpose I want.

Good, at this point I already have captured your attention and you have probably been looking around to find a pencil on your desk, as we all do have pencils on our desks.

You might as well not use them – what a shame – but we all have those “wooden sticks” somewhere at home.

As far as I’m concerned I like them, and I like having them properly sharpened and standing like little soldiers in their container. I like to use them in my everyday life for making lists or capturing an idea and keeping words on a sheet of paper, a post-it or a pad.

A pencil is something great, something necessary, and if we come to talk about color pencils that is even more magical.

Did you ever think about how many books or pictures or drawings have been started just with a pencil? How many art masterpieces owe their existence to that object? The list is probably huge.

But nothing is perfect, we already know that, and pencils have a little inconvenient: their leads blunt or break and they have to be sharpened. Thanks God sharpeners exist too, otherwise the use of a pencil will be ridiculous.

I am talking about real pencils, not about the modern ones, that kind of pens on which one has to push the other side to release the lead, that need to be refilled with breakable nude leads and which even have a tiny eraser.

Those pens are useful, I can’t deny it, but they don’t offer the pleasure a real pencil gives you each time you grab it with your fingers, feeling the warmness of the wood and its almost imperceptible imperfections.

Unfortunately nowadays a pencil is almost a useless tool and thus a luxury for people who, like me, still use them. A cheap luxury that is true but a luxury none the less.

I can’t help smiling when I see my pencils properly sharpened, standing on their container on my desk, and I like making them slide on the paper, and I like sharpening them till reaching the conical point which makes them so perfect. I like watching how their shavings fall into a flat glass box I have for that purpose and I even like the shape of the shavings. I like to see how a pencil turns small with its use, becoming even more delicate and fragile.

After all those explanations, I know why I wanted to write about pencils, just to let people know that I appreciate a lot how they make our everyday life a bit easier.

Thank you “pencils” ^_***.