You Can’t Perfume a Text Message
Vestiges of the old world in this modern age
Italian alabaster sculptor. Photo by John Patrick Weiss
There are still vestiges of the old world lurking humbly in this age of hurry and hustle. Cobblestone pathways that lead to cramped studios, where artists work with old tools in deference to their ancestors and traditions.
To witness their work is to feel relief that all is not lost in this age of rapid modernity and high-speed drift into nowhere.
If you get off the main drag and wander the steep, narrow maze of Volterra, Italy, behind the tourist traps and whine of electric scooters, you might stumble into the dim studio of an alabaster sculptor.
The air in there is thick with white dust.
The sculptor looks like a ghost working in a cloud, carving and shaping raw stone with his bare hands, continuing a trade handed down through centuries. It hits you with the same awe you feel standing before Michelangelo’s David in Florence.
The realization that a human being can still shape grace right out of a rock.
Out in the blinding light of the piazzas, the modern world screams. Hordes of tourists shuffle along the cobblestones like zombies, their faces illuminated by the blue glow of smartphones, hunting for translations and directions.
But the ancient world doesn't die easily.
Nuns in Italy. Photo by John Patrick Weiss
Right through the middle of that digital noise, two nuns drift past in perfect unison. They don’t look at the shops. They float through the crowd like pale, glowing wraiths. Escapees from some forgotten monastery, moving to a heartbeat entirely untouched by the twenty-first century.
Even up on the high stone ramparts of Lucca, if you look away from the selfie sticks, you’ll spy a local guy sitting on a crumbling berm. He’s completely blind to the tourist racket, totally lost inside the physical pages of a thick book.
Man reading in Lucca. Photo by John Patrick Weiss
It pleases me. There are still book lovers out there in the world, standing athwart the tyranny of blinking screens.
These quiet moments are the fraying threads of something ancient and beautiful. We walk past them every day, barely noticing that the landscape of our lives is being flattened out, smoothed over, and tucked away, leaving only a faint, phantom vibration in the air.
And you don’t have to cross an ocean to watch that disappearance happen. Sometimes the quietest erasures take place right in your own neighborhood, while you’re busy looking at your phone.
The local Hallmark store quietly went under.
Another little death of the old ways. For years, that place was a clean, quiet sanctuary filled with the scent of unprinted paper and rows of blank cards. There were collectibles, wrapping paper, stationery, journals, and even Cross and Parker fountain pens in the display case.
Looking through that dark storefront window took me back to my university days. I thought of summer breaks and corresponding with girls I’d met on campus. The pure joy of finding a crisp envelope waiting in the mailbox.
There was a kind of magic in those old letters.
You could see her personality in the cursive. Her spontaneous vivacity in the exaggerated loops. The colorful stamp she licked and pressed into the corner.
And the stationery was usually perfumed. To hold that note in your hands was to hold a piece of her time, deliberate care, and presence.
But things have changed.
The postal service is going broke.
We manage our lives through glass screens. Real cards with stamps and handwriting and thoughtful care have succumbed to the cursory email or text. Love letters gave way to Snapchat exchanges.
The sad truth is that you can’t perfume a text message.
The empty Hallmark storefront is like that crumbling berm in Lucca. A remnant of the past. It leaves us standing on the sidewalk, looking through the glass at bare shelves, wondering why we gave up something real and true and intimate.
Convenience and efficiency sometimes come with a cost.
So I hold onto some of the old ways. I still write with fountain pens. I like their scratch on the paper, their mercurial nature, and the occasional ink smudges on the page. Their unpredictability and imperfection are what make them perfect.
My old cameras. Photo by John Patrick Weiss
I still shoot photos with a rangefinder-style camera. It allows complete control over the exposure triangle, even if the final photographs never produce the flat, flawless digital perfection of an iPhone.
I still read and re-read physical books, whose ink-and-paper cannot be manipulated or censored by online revisionists or political scolds. My home library is my sanctuary.
All is not lost.
There are still vestiges of the old world lurking in the corners if you embrace the art of noticing. They are quiet invitations. Asking us to slow down, to remember, and to embrace the simpler ways.
In this age of disintegrating attention and fading depth and elegance, there are still alabaster sculptors. Still people who leave the madding crowd to sit on a berm and read a good book. Still a few of us with leaky fountain pens scratching out heartfelt notes on vellum finished stationery.
We may be a dwindling community, but we’re holding on. Send us one of your efficient and sterile emails. Include a return, snail mail address.
Maybe we’ll send you a perfumed letter.
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