Write!

How is your handwriting these days? Mine has really deteriorated, like any other skill that is seldom used. I didn't even know there was a day set aside as "handwriting day" -- sounds like a marketing ploy -- but, as I wrote recently, I've just ordered some new inks and a new fountain pen. I got my ink today, so it felt like the right time to write a bit, and think about handwriting.

My "normal" handwriting is the fast, right-leaning scrawl you see above. It's embarrassing to me to look at letters written by my mother, my grandmother and her sisters, or my great-grandmother, all of whom had beautiful penmanship, and -- I'm afraid -- more patience than I do when writing a letter or a journal entry. Here's the beginning of one from my grandmother, where she excuses her poor penmanship -- as if! -- because she's writing on her lap.

I miss those letters and those correspondences: the anticipation, the thoughtfulness of composing a reply, the slowness of the exchange. I miss finding a real letter in my mailbox in college, or from a faraway boyfriend or close friend. Here's an envelope from my grandmother, addressed to me in Vermont in 1983. Gosh.

It's so beautiful!

I actually made my living for a while as a calligrapher. Those pages of carefully-formed calligraphic scripts don't resemble my handwriting, and they represent a lot of slowing down and patience and slow breathing. For me, handwriting like the examples above is more like talking, and it moves a lot faster. But when I look at the way I write now, i'm shocked. It feels to me like it's time to do some of those breathing exercises, slow down, and write somebody -- maybe myself! -- a letter.

Not that what we write now, by email or even by text, is any less sincere or thoughtful. I still carry on long correspondences with a number of people, and we don't have the patience or the time to do it by snail mail: those days, I'm quite sure, are long gone. But our brains are connected to our hands, and writing is part of what makes us human. We lose those manual dexterity skills at our peril, I think, and I bet that one day scientists will discover that the near-overnight loss of writing by hand, and related skills, affected our brains in some significant ways. I know some of you keep handwritten journals, or write "morning pages" each day. Others draw or sketch. But the time most of us now spend with a pencil or pen in hand is really minimal - for some of us, it barely exists anymore. Do you think it's important? Do you miss it? What takes its place in your life these days?

 

Comments

[Duchesse]

I have a banker's box full of saved letters, but also blank cards I bought, never anticipating that people would stop sending handwritten missives. I felt I hit a new low when I sent a condolence letter to a friend by e-mail. My excuse, that I wanted her to have it before a full week had passed, seems insufficient now. Looking at your sample, I realize that I used to 'now' my friends' handwriting; it was not necessary for a signature. Now I have no idea, for most.

The handwriting of those I've lost leaps off the page like it's their breaths.

[Kathryn Samuelson]

I heard about some research on an NPR program that showed that cursive writing hard wires the brain in a certain way that is lost when it's no longer taught. I believe there is a movement to bring it back into elementary schools.

[Duchesse]

That's "know" my friends' handwriting.

I have a beautiful old fountain pen that was my Dad's. I had it reconditioned years ago, but then never used it.

[Kristin Berkey-Abbott]

At the end of 2018, I had a few journaling sessions by hand--I'm usually typing into the computer, but I needed to write, and I had a sketchbook and pen with me, but no laptop. I found it very soothing, the writing on higher quality paper. In my younger days, I wrote in cheap notebooks and filled up lots of them. I do write poems by hand before typing them into the computer. Intriguing to think about this!

[Priya Sebastian]

Looking at handwriting seems to do to the brain what looking at a face must! Is the handwriting in the first picture yours? I realized I don't even know what your handwriting looks like.
These days in my new well lit home, I have resumed reading books again - wonderful to do in natural light. If I find a paragraph that I particularly like, there is the need to write it in a book somewhere and much like you, I am always taken aback at how much my handwriting has deteriorated.
If you write me a handwritten letter I could do the same for you. But what will we write about since we already have Facebook and Instagram to give us a glimpse into each other's lives. I guess we could write each other a favourite poem.

[Pascale Parinda]

Now that I seem to be writing poems, my handwriting is back front-and-center. It’s not beautiful, but I am enjoying putting words on paper in my own hand.

[Marly Youmans]

I had the very worst handwriting in my third grade class and became the special pupil of a traveling handwriting teacher. Wrote about it here: https://thepalaceat2.blogspot.com/2007/09/little-man-of-letters.html. I get loads of compliments on my handwriting, especially from young people, who seem downright astonished that such a thing is possible. Curious, because once upon a time many people had a good hand, and often added their own flourishes and variations as they grew older.

[Natalie]

Beth! I don't understand how you can possibly say that your handwriting has deteriorated! The example at the top of this post is beautiful, characterful, individual, strong. Whereas the one from your grandmother's letter is just nice, pretty but conventional, following a style she was taught. I don't mean to belittle her at all. I'm just puzzled by how perceptions of one's self can vary so much. Anyway, carry on hand-writing in any way you damn please!

[Huw]

Beautiful handwriting is indeed a treat, and handwritten letters even more so. I've always admired American script which has never been taught in the UK. Although as Natalie says your handwriting is excellent!
My daughters are surprisingly developed in their handwriting; in this digital age it's something they enjoy and are good at, perhaps driven by the recent craze for bullet journaling. A good life skill.

[Roderick Robinson]

I didn't participate in International Handwriting Day, it isn't a craft that brings about fond memories. I was beaten both at primary and secondary school for bad handwriting and although I was a shocking coward when it came to being beaten the beatings didn't bring about the slightest improvements. It was an enormous relief to join the newspaper where the typewriter replaced the pen and the only "writing" I did was in Pitman's Shorthand. The next giant step forward was word processing software which did away with the balls of crumpled paper round my chair - the side effects of trying to come up with a good "intro" when typing "a story" (In journalism we always called them stories, never articles).

I enjoyed reading your following post about buying good art materials. Sixty or seventy years ago I attempted drawing and bought a good rough-textured drawing pad and a 6B pencil. But parsimony (a characteristic of people born in the West Riding of Yorkshire) intervened. I found myself incapable of starting a drawing if I suspected I wouldn't manage to finish it satisfactorily. I believe the pad is now up in the attic. Only three or four pages were sullied. One showed a nude man with a moustache sitting on a chair, more or less complete except for his feet where I ran out of paper. I am mildly curious about the sort of skills I brought to the party but it would take a mental earthquake for me to start searching for it.