Pen karma.

“It’s not you, it’s me.”

That statement has justified the ending of a thousand relationships. In my case, it signified a beginning.

I put up my bronze celluloid Moore 94-A for sale last year. It’s a good-looking pen, around the size of a Pelikan M400. I didn’t bond with it as I’d hoped.  The Maniflex nib did flex, but because the ink flow was too wet, I found it difficult to achieve the degree of line variation I wanted.

Moore 94-A
Moore 94-A

No one bought it, so back it went into the pen box.

Flash forward to early this year. I was looking for pens to test Noodler’s Zhivago in, and I thought of the Moore. I flushed it, and because I was a little impatient, didn’t bother to wait for the excess moisture to evaporate before filling the pen.

Moore 94-A, Maniflex nib
Moore 94-A, Maniflex nib

Well, wouldn’t you know. Through some peculiar alchemy of flow and ink formulation, the Moore started writing just as I had originally thought it would.

Moore 94-A, downstroke
Moore 94-A, downstroke

Nothing had changed with the pen. It was perfectly happy being what it was. I only had to find out how to work with it to get what I wanted.

Moore 94-A, writing sample
Moore 94-A, writing sample

Hey, if it works for pens, it might work for relationships.

(Thank you to TAO for the 1×1 mm grid Postalco notebook.)