as an adolescent, i discovered the beauty of pens. of commitment. of what it meant to think several moves ahead. to accept the consequences of my errors. the transition wasn’t an easy one. initially, when i first switched to ink, i burned through reams of loose-leaf; my perfectionist tendencies wouldn’t allow me to submit papers or send letters with any visible errors. and for a short while, i was that girl—the neurotic one with a secret stash of wite-out® in her purse. eventually, i grew to see strikethroughs as beautiful, a reminder of my own fallibility and a way to ensure that the iterative, revision-prone meanderings of my mind were captured alongside the final draft. there was a deeper narrative there, one just as much about the who,where, when, why and how as much as the what.

- mini o chun aka long-winded on tumblr | read + see more