A Lost Art Form

Melody at Slurping Life wrote about the creative expression of writing with pen and paper.
Funny, I have thought often about handwriting lately. I have found that I can hardly write a check anymore. And that a desire has once again bubbled in my to have nice writing. [I know it has to do with something I read somewhere...] I never had great penmanship but I remember working really hard on it as a child and even received a Certificate of Excellence in the 5th grade. [Maybe they made a mistake] Recently, I have desired that ability to WRITE again. I mean write note cards out for people in pretty, feminine writing.

Although my spelling is another issue!!...

I always longed for beautiful, flowing cursive writing. I love the writing on the back of vintage postcards, people rarely write like that in this age. It's a lost art. I too have lost my ability to write in script, I started printing everything in college. Then it became uppercase printing. Maybe it has to do with being left-handed. I've always gone about some things differently due to being left-handed and I'm notorious for running my palm through not-yet-dry ink.

Yet, when I wrote creatively while young, I alway wanted to use pencil and paper to write out my stories and poems. I needed the freedom to just - write and even erase. Final versions would eventually get typed out. At the same time, I journaled for many years; it was a release of teen-angst or confusion, a record of events and experiences, a healing act. Although in that act of releasing, of healing, I began journaling less as it seemed to only stir more anxiety rather then release it.

I stopped writing.

Then came the means to have a computer in every home. I was able to express myself again without thinking so much about my writing - and I had an automatic spell check!

Yes, pen and paper is becoming a lost art.

But it defines us, too. How we express and present ourselves to others outside the online community.

Sometimes everyday experiences can evoke many memories in me and I want to scribble them down as I recall them. I don't want to "lose" them again.

I took the above picture a few weeks ago because I liked the "realness" of the moment but I realized it had a piece of paper with random thoughts written down - about journaling, memories and writing. Since I don't consider myself a great expresser of thought, [and I can't spell to save my life] the picture left me feeling vulnerable so it sat hidden. Now it seems appropriate for this post.

I have volumes of notebooks holding scrapes of paper in them with poems, stories and thoughts all laying out a road map of who I am. They will never go anywhere, I can't throw them away. They represent who I wanted to be, who I was, who I became.

Now if only I had the lovely handwriting.