Cursive Writing and Other Disappearing Acts

My cursive skills are in serious decline. My penmanship is looking more sloppy as the years go by. Not to mention that I feel lazy to handwrite even a short note sometimes, almost like I feel annoyed by the sheer act! Well, part of that can be I think attributed to advancing age. My mother wrote me a note the other day and I noticed that her handwriting was looking quite sloppy and, well, like an elderly persons handwriting. Mine is not quite there yet at 58, but thinking about this made me wonder recently as to the reason why. Honestly, I didn't have to think long to come up with a theory, and the reason that lead to my sloppiness, and now laziness as well to write in cursive is also the reason for so many changes in our society, here and around the world. It's "IT." Internet technology.

Before I start to mourn what the internet has done to us and taken from us (and hey, it's not all just one big gripe session here from this "boomer"; there is a lot that I just like everybody else like about today's technology), let me share my recent handwriting "symptoms" with you. If I'm writing something that goes beyond a few sentences the fingers I use to hold the pen (I assume the same for you, traditionally the index and middle finger together with the thumb) may start to tense up, even hurt. Hey I don't have arthritis, at least I don't think so. I think my fingers are just rebelling against what now feels in this modern age as such an odd and archaic task! The other day my hand got so tired that I stuck the pen between my middle finger and ring finger then formed my hand into a "semi fist" and kept on writing. I also pause in the middle of words sometimes, as if I forgot what I was writing. I don't always loop my e anymore, or any letter that requires a cursive loop, as if I were looking for shortcuts to just get it done already. I almost groan when I have to go back and cross a t or dot an i. Once in a while when I go back and read what I wrote there is some word I can't read!

You might ask well why do I ever write in cursive then. I'm a traditionalist, as well as a boomer. I like to send the occasional hand-written note as well as getting one sometimes. A few years ago by some odd, almost metaphysically impossible chance I received THREE handwritten letters from Japan on the same day. I was beside myself! I think a handwritten note is just warmer, maybe even more sincere in appearance. An abbreviated message with a bunch of emojis just doesn't do it for me as much. And also maybe cursive writing is a skill I just don't want to lose. With most skills it is as they say "use it or lose it." They say though that once you learn how to ride a bike you never forget. I would like to put that theory to the test one of these days.

Some 20 years ago I was working as an elementary school teacher. My sister-in-law, also a school teacher, came over one weekend and went with me to my classroom to help me with some lesson planning. We went into a storage room down the hall and she found an old, thin workbook titled "Handwriting." She was besides herself with joy and she asked me if she could take a copy with her back to her school, swearing that they just didn't have anything like that there. Mind you this was some 20 plus years ago and workbooks on cursive were already not necessarily standard in all elementary schools. Today I am sure that you will find even fewer of those around. I understand how the emphasis is on typing and being good with a keyboard today and how children should really become adept at that, but still there is a sentimental wistfulness about the fact that cursive writing and any sense of value in it is fading from society. I have seen more Christmas cards in recent years where the signatures were completely written out by a machine, with no attempt to even make the signatures look genuine. Christmas cards, birthday cards, etc. always of course did have wonderful little poems or sentiments written out in them but at least you would add a little note in pen and sign your name. Today I see more greeting cards all the time with everything written out by a machine, even the signatures. We can't take the time to at least SIGN our names to a card ourselves?

People I have worked with in the past who were just down the hall from me would regularly send me emails for the most trivial questions or memos, like where I wanted to have lunch. I would always get up from my seat and go to that office and give my response in person. Come by my office and spend a couple of minutes with me in conversation! If you don't have quite the time, at least quickly come by my office and ask the question before you race out the door to an appointment. I for one love the human contact, any moment we could interact. Maybe, sometimes, dare to write a note on a post-it and leave it on my desk if I'm not there. Yeah, sometimes, I get the email with the smiley face, but I don't completely want to lose the past. Talking about pens, some of the people who text way more than I do (and I do do quite a bit of that yes) haven't handwritten someone a note in so long that I think the ink in their pens have dried out.

Not wanting to handwrite a note anymore is indicative of something else: We don't want to take any more time today on anything, even something entertaining and recreational, than we have to. Post a video of more than ten seconds on Facebook. Go ahead. I used to post videos of my favorite songs, oldies or modern in English or Spanish, and get several likes and at least a few comments. I stopped sharing music videos on FB because starting about over five years ago nobody was watching them anymore, never mind leave a comment. It takes too much time! Entertain me with something that takes ten seconds to watch. "Flash fiction" is a thing now, where someone can write a quick story now even just a sentence long and that author will get a following. I noticed some of my young adult students in recent years posting videos of silly pratfalls and the most inane stuff and those videos DO get the views. I should maybe form a Facebook group, or a site elsewhere, for people over 40 who are willing to listen to a slow beautiful song from beginning to end and leave a comment on it. At the risk of sounding like a cliche, "let's stop and smell the flowers."

I had a "bilingual reading club" once (an exclusive club of two: me and a former student) where we would read some book or short story and discuss it and learn some new vocabulary. Would love to start something like that again, in person or an online group. Just to take the time to enjoy some nice literature or talk about a song, go over its lyrics (here I'm talking mostly to ESL students; studying song lyrics are a great way to pick up new vocabulary). Sometimes I wonder how brick-and-morter bookstores are still a thing because sometimes I think fewer and fewer people with the passage of time really want to read a book book. We are getting to that point of, well, give me what I need to know now and as fast as you can. Give it to me in emojis, heck in hieroglyphics.

Before it was just coffee that had to be instant. Now it has to be instant news and tell me as fast as you can. Most people you see staring at their phone screens are not taking their time to read, they are scrolling for anything not more than a paragraph in length. The situation we find ourselves in today politically is due much to the fact that for some years now we have not taken the time to stop and read an article or really listen to a report, from people from across the range on the political spectrum. Then people rush a vote, don't take the time to find out if any accusation is actually correct. Can it be verified? etc. Let us take the time with each other, to get to know each other and not jump to conclusions. Slow down life a little bit.

Or maybe I'm just a baby boomer whose time has past. Write me a note. Of course I'll understand if it's not in cursive.