A PEBBLE AMONGST MOUNTAINS. (the beginning of my journey)

There have been times when I have been grabbed by an idea so tightly there is the sense I can't seem to get a shimmer of another potential exploration slipped in sideways, no matter how hard I try, the others just tear away or thin in the steady humming winds of that new passion. As with many things that have swooped in suddenly through my curtain-less wide open window of interests, typewriter repair was a big one that kept. There were the days in the beginning when I felt nerves overtake me when just thinking about removing a part or what did what on the underside to where. I would look and search online, and wait, there was always a lot of waiting. Hoping someone else out there had spent the necessary amount of time inspecting and learning the same thing I was struggling with at that very moment. Sometimes it would happen that I would find a short video or a forum discussion and it would get me in closer or maybe even get the problem solved...but I still didn't feel certain that I "knew" what I was reaching at...what I had been attempting. Now lets go back about two and a half years prior. I have been photographing things of interest and collecting cameras for some amount of years now, trying to teach myself in a similar way to restore cameras. There was a point when I had once again reached my top of, I wont say abilities, but my confidence base camp. Which for me, not being the most confident in almost anything I do, base camp is probably the safe bet as to where my confidence resides and decides to slip into a warm coat plumped at the shadow brim, feet from the rustling flap of my shelter, with a steaming cup in hand awaiting a purpling sky as the sun in its bowing takes the day down canyon deep and silent. This is a lovely place for me, safe and kind. Yet I have tried from time to time to step out and move upward through the rough dry grasses there hoping to find somebody to help me. I found that a place called Camera Rescue over in Finland was starting a camera repair school, I jumped and after talking to my partner I sent in an application. Little did I know that they were only accepting 4 international students, and in the end I was not one of them. I ordered some books to look through and try repair at home more and more and after I while I realized that the cost of all the tools along with my need for visual learning was going to be a big game changer in the end. That kind of repair slowed and has pretty much become stunted. Sometime later I was at a second hand shop, I saw a blue Royal Safari sitting in a corner nestled in its own weight on a green table cloth dotted with little yellow flowers and I was drawn in. I touched it and felt a similar resistance to a shutter button on a camera in the keys, just enough counter weight to give it its own presence. I loved it. I looked at it, I touched it and watched the carriage move and groove, it had a stutter, and I was curious. I had spent maybe 4 minutes with this thing when a woman came around into the booth and sternly stated "don't touch that! you have to ask for assistance." Slightly startled I apologized and shuffled away...I didn't know what to do in that moment but that. I walked through the shop a bit, poking around and thinking about that typewriter, the feeling and the sounds and how I might want to get me one if I found the right one. I thought about it on the drive home, how it, although very very different and very much its own thing, they are sort of like a zoomed in camera in the sense of moving parts, things to see, this does that and boom something important happens, but much more approachable....a little easier access. Turns out about 2 weeks later I did find a machine. It was without much internet diving and digging I came across a slightly beat up Olympia SM9. I read up on it after making the purchase, which led me to find out it is a loved and appreciated machine, so I had this firey excitement and soft expectation in my waiting for it to arrive. It got here some days later and the first impression I had was that the keys felt dead...too light...nothing left to give. I typed on it some and due to it not being super filthy the keys would return to the type bar rest...but something was definitely off. I wanted to know how to notice...what to look for and how to see, to in the end be able to right whatever had wronged this capable machine. I looked for pictures of the underside online, I assumed it was something coming from that area. Looking at the movement of the separate pivot points there looked to be a gap or a row of missing springs...but I wasn't sure until I came across a picture and found exactly what had been taken from it. The long row of springs that attach the type bar links to the stable frame had been sourced from this machine, I assume for another. The seller neglected to mention that this was a parts machine in their listing.....I ended up deciding in the end that if I found another parts machine to get these from I would get it. I did, and after attaching them one after the other, it was snappy as heck, perfect, something to behold! Long story short, this was the first moment where this small success after digging and the effort that went into this very simple repair began the desire to do more, seek and discover and help other machines and friends of them continue to work and hammer out (gently) the many words and rhythms that are tucked away within us. Jump back to now in the timeline of me. I got in touch with Bremerton Office Machine Co. and talked with Paul Lundy for a little while before being put on a waiting list for their 3 month apprenticeship program. 1 year later, I reached out again, checking in to see how much I had scooted up the ladder towards beginning, he said I was next! We set up a zoom call and he showed me the shop, the show room the desk I would be working at and that was it, I began my packing, reaching out to people to find a place to live 5 and a half hours away from home for 3 months. It all surprisingly fell into place. The next thing I knew I was in a room laying on a pad on top of a therm-a-rest in a house with an unfinished kitchen and a cat that didn't like me. I had a week in Bremerton before beginning, so I walked and looked and went to local places and saw the ocean for the first time in years. It was exciting and nerve wracking but the urge to learn and dive in was eating at me. I lay at night and I wonder, until on April 23rd 2024 I started. (to be continued)