Hand writing

A friend of mine asked for her friends to write actual letters to her.  Letter writing has a special appeal to her, as well as others.  It is of course, a dying art form though.  This is the snail mail that the younger generations probably just cannot even comprehend.  How many of our high school crowds are writing by hand for any of their English or humanities classes?  NONE.  That wasn't my experience.  If an assignment was given, it was to be neatly written in blue or black ink.

I had an English Teacher, Mr. Bernardo in 9th grade that demanded perfect penmanship with "i" dotted and "t" crossed.  I am not exaggerating.  He took off points if you did not comply to his standard, which again was perfection.  The class gave all the proper responses to this dogma; this is not going to matter 'in the real world'; I can't read my Doctor's writing and "that's just the way I write my signature."

All were quickly dismissed.  You have not earned the right to have a signature.  You can and will comply. Period. Exclamation point!

I was incredulous.  I complained to my parents.  They took the 'wait and see' approach.  So the first paper was due, and submitted.  I had mostly tried, but perhaps not with all my focus and diligence.  It came back with red ink.  Red circles and red underscores of areas that were improper.  T's that had loops, L's that didn't along with the grammar and spelling, indicative of a future engineer.  But come on, penmanship! That's not right!

Mr. Bernardo made a trip to our home to 'visit' with my mom one afternoon.  So, while I practiced my wheelies up and down the street on my bike, he and mom chatted.  I did not get the complete low down on every detail of their conversation, but learned that my teacher thought well of me, that I was a good student and completely capable of getting to the point of having no points taken off for handwriting.  Mom apparently bought it.  Sadness.

If you know my mom,  and have gotten a card in the mail from her, you will know this: She has PERFECT handwriting.  It has a beautiful gracefulness to it, with a left-leaning slant showing the proper form for a left- handed author.  This surely did not help my case.

Here's the thing,  I did not like getting points off.  I did not like it at all.  So, I tried harder.  Do you know what happened?  I slowed down the speed just a little, focused just a little harder and the result was no more points taken off.  Perfect penmanship to match the alphabet posted across the top of the black board.

It's been more years than I care to admit since then.  I also have to admit that my handwriting is obscenely far from perfect.  I think this is due to part lack of care and the need for speed.  I went to my first 'closing' on the purchase of my townhouse and there are a ton of signatures required.  I tried to take my time but everyone at the table was saying, "hurry it up, it doesn't need to be perfect."  

This all came up as a result of the request for a letter.  My writing was nearly embarrassing.  I have taken a little time over the past few weeks to try to brush up on it.  In the process I've noticed some things.

There are numerous ways you can accent the basic form of letters.  This is probably completely obvious to you.  You can tell one person's handwriting from another.  If you look at cards at a store for birthdays, holidays or any special occasion you can see a tremendous sample of different lettering styles.  You might notice "Old English" on a diploma.  Besides the overall style you can see the fineness or boldness of each part of the letter.  When you put all this together there is a feeling that each style brings.  It can feel formal, or comical, whimsical or serious.  Here's my rough take at showing some of these differences:

I have been thinking about all this since the request of a letter.  I think that the written script can show so much more than a quick email.  The words come faster at times as you write something that is moving quickly in your brain, or is more emotional and it shows in your script with letters that may be a little more hastily drawn, or the spacing and size differ ever so slightly- but it's noticeable.  The width of the letters change with the pressure you apply to the page, again with the mood of your pen.  You have the freedom to intentionally change the style for the salutation and closing.  I know you can show some of these things in the typed page or email, but when all is said and done - only you can write as you do.  It feels more personal to put pen to paper.  It shows more of who you are, even when (hopefully) your handwriting improves.