Longhand flowing...

(This post was originally written, longhand, in my notebook in an experiment of sorts...I'm just now getting to type it, or at least I'm trying, the little one is grabbing my hand...it is July 31...lets see if I get this done.)

July 25
I have to say I really enjoy writing longhand. Call me old fashioned but there's something about the flourish of the pen ( or in my case pencil...my instrument of choice ) that is romantic? It evokes, in me...the idea of the long lost art of letter writing...who'd have thought  in 2013 I'd refer to letter writing as a long lost art. It makes me think of my Mother and how she had been left handed, but she was forced to write right handed. It also makes me think of how she used to use shorthand (do I have to explain what shorthand is in 2013...does anyone even use shorthand anymore?) to mark our Christmas presents. Christmas morning in her sleep deprived coma, she could never read her own shorthand and would struggle to figure out whose presents were whose. She did this every year till she died. When I write, I think of all the time spent practicing my handwriting so that it would look nice, but still express my uniqueness. I think of how I incorporated some of my older sister's very specific flips and flourishes, since I idolized her so...but got irritated with myself every time I used them...I adored and resented her in equal parts. I think of how I grew up left handed in a right handed world at the advent of eraser pens and my left hand smeared the ink across the page leaving a permanent blue smear on my pinkie. I remember the frustration and failure of not being allowed to make the life changing fourth grade leap from pencil to pen. I remember the complete befuddlement and subsequent assumption that it was the nun's hatred of me that put me in the pencil group...I couldn't see how my penmanship was any worse than the pen users, who were so elite they even got to sit in a separate section of the classroom. It's been so long since I've written something on paper that my hand became sore within the first few lines. Fortunately three beautiful daughteruss interuptess allowed my hand some rest. These something inexplicable about writing on paper...the old fashioned way! I still have the same frustrating struggle at the top of the page ...lefty issues...you righties don't know. Perhaps it was being left handed in this world that now makes this have so much emotional resonance. Don't get me wrong I'm not sitting here crying or something...just waxing nostalgic.. I stumbled upon an article or perhaps a website ( I can't remember) of a woman who has spent her life studying handwriting. She claims that you can change your life by changing your handwriting...I tried it for a few days, but I wasn't able to keep up the required time period ( four weeks or something like that, and if you missed a day you had to start the whole thing from the beginning ). What she did talk about though that I found fascinating and relevant to my own experience is her explanation that the side of your brain that types onto a keyboard is the opposite side of the brain that writes long hand and...guess which side is in charge of creative writing...that's right you guessed it...the longhand side. So according to this unnamed woman (who I probably could find if I looked, but won't because I've only got small windows before I have to get up, a window which I am now wasting explaining this thing to no one) this accounts for the writers block ( more like writers molasses) that occurs to people like me, who can compose the wittiest most brilliant things whenever they're doing some mundane task like the dishes, but upon sitting down to the computer to share this brilliance with the masses they've gone ssssslllllow! It's still in there, but you can't quite get it out. Writing on paper, writing anything on paper feels like a creative expression. have you ever just felt like writing something...I mean as in putting letters on a page...watching the swoops and curves and dashes and strokes create full words and then ultimately sentences and then the whole page is filled with these beautiful designs, but they have meaning. I always looked at full pages of writing as either attractive or unattractive...this explains me a lot! I actually have a few different styles of penmanship depending on my mood...if you studied my handwriting, ( like unnamed woman ) you would be able to tell how I was feeling about myself and the world. Actually you wouldn't have to study my handwriting per se...you could just look at it. I have been given my own brand of validation ( which is important to people like me...know what I mean?) Sandra Miller actually writes her books longhand and then transfers them to a computer. So since she's a successful author that means it's o.k. for me to write longhand and then transfer it...well, it means I'm not crazy for trying it...yes I'm getting "permission" from a complete stranger to write in a notebook and then transfer it to a computer...yes it is starting to seem as silly to me as it does to you...onward!