“OOoooooo….. Glitter pens.” My girls were in heaven when we entered a cute little shoppe in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire last summer. As always, they gravitated to the cute journals and stationery with unicorns and rainbows and donut cats. They gasped in delight and begged for the colored pencils and markers, until they came upon the holy grail of all writing implements: the glitter pens.
I’m a writer at heart. To my core. I’ve always processed best on paper. So yeah, I get that we need pens. It doesn’t matter if no one is going to read my ramblings — I need them for me. It helps me organize my thoughts, make sense of my world. To me, writing is a necessity. Like breathing. Like eating.
However, I’m also a pragmatist. Get the job done with efficiency and excellence, then move on to the next. The ethereal value of glitter in my ink is a bit lost on me.
For years I have rolled my eyes at the girls and told them in my most long-suffering voice: “You already have markers. And colored pencils. And pens. Use what you’ve got. You don’t need more.”
I wasn’t wrong. And in the interest of minimalism and reducing waste, my reasoning wins. But for some reason, on this occasion, I gave in and bought the glitter pens. The girls were ecstatic.
Fast forward to a few weeks later. Moving on from Edinburgh to the Lancashire coast. A thought had come to me, so in true travel blogger form, I pulled over to the side of the road to put pen to paper. Nothing is fresher and more inspiring than the in-the-moment musings spurned by travel!
Gasp! I couldn’t find my pen! “Lex, do you have a pen I can borrow? Quick, quick, so I don’t forget my thought!”
And out came a glitter pen. The Veritas 1.1mm purple glitter pen, sparkling in all its silly, frivolous glory. I put pen to paper and madly started journaling. Intent on getting my latest “brilliance” onto the page, I wrote and I wrote. And then I was done.
I sat back with a sigh of satisfied relief. And then… the magic. Looking down, I gasped as all my random jumbled thoughts shimmered back up at me in the bright glory of the fleeting, north English summer sun.
I couldn’t help but smile. Smile at the little bit of my daughters’ youthful hearts and souls that were twinkling up at me from the page. Smile at the whimsy, at the glitter whose existence, whose entire raison d’etre, is entirely un-pragmatic, playful, in its nature.
I smile at the incredible wisdom in which my daughters dwell. They know the spirit-lifting power of unexpected beauty. They know the joy of playfulness. They know that seemingly inconsequential fripperies can harness the life-forces of creativity, whimsy, and light-heartedness. They know the simple joy of enjoying a moment.
So I’m taking a note from my enlightened daughters. They remind me, in my busy, pragmatic, plow-through-it adult life, to stop and smile. To enjoy the little things. To bring out my inner child whose only thought is to enjoy, enjoy, enjoy this gift of life.
Now I say: Yes. Bring on the glitter pens.
