"Absolutely not," I said. "Out of the question – get someone else."
"But it's not that many," she replied. "And we'll pay you the same we pay our usual calligrapher."
"How many?" I asked, despite myself. "Not that it matters – I'm not doing it."
"I'm not sure; I'll have to check," she said. "But it will be easy – it only a name and the date on each certificate."
Easy. Yeah, right. And by easy you mean using actual pen and ink, something I have done very little of over the past three decades. By easy you mean finding time in an already tight schedule, perhaps moving some prior commitment. By easy you mean pouring my very soul onto the paper, leaving it open and vulnerable for all see and, who knows, perhaps even sneer at.
When I took up calligraphy again after my almost-thirty-years break, I promised myself that this time I was doing it for myself, for my own pleasure and nothing else. I would write when I felt like it, and put my pens aside when I felt like it. No clients, no deadlines, no pressure – just my own enjoyment.
It was this selfish resolve that was now surfacing. I refused. No arguments, no appeal, no begging could sway me. I was not going to do it, and that – as far as I was concerned – was that. I would not capitulate, I would not reconsider, and I would give the request nothing but the disdain it deserved. I was that determined.
But I wrote them anyway.
