Sign of the Times

A few weeks ago I was addressing Christmas cards, and was again faced with the fact that I have the handwriting of an old lady.

Actually, that's not true. I am selling the elderly short. Well into her eighties, my surviving grandmother had handwriting that was measured and controlled, demonstrating a manual dexterity learned early and exercised over a lifetime. Only in recent years has it faltered.

I feel self-conscious sending her cards. Even when I use my best pen and try to carefully shape my words, the letters "h", "m", and "n" still come out squashed, and "b", "v", and "w" are misshapen. A few years ago she admonished me for my barely legible scrawl, and since then I've made occasional, half-hearted attempts to improve it. When stuck in meetings I sometimes practice: aaa, bbb, ccc, ddd.  But then I get bored and I forget about it until the next time I sit down in front of a blank birthday card, pen in hand.

I do have a special skill, though: I can write backwards with my left hand. It's not something I ever set out to master. It's just something I can do. With my right hand, sentences move from left to right. But with my left hand, the letters all flip and flow in the opposite direction. My right hand passes everything it knows to the left and while the script is shaky, it's still legible when held up to a mirror. If there's anything I should practice, it's my mirror writing. It makes for a decent party trick. 

I've always struggled with handwriting. I remember trying to make the transition from printing to script. The teacher had us use pencils until she deemed us skilled enough for ink. I was one of the last to advance beyond lead, and I suspect I was given a pass only because my teacher couldn't extend the restriction past fifth grade.

For years my writing was long and thin, slanting to the right. I would angle the top of the sheet to the left while writing, and from that perspective it looked okay. But when I straightened the paper again I was always disappointed with the outcome. Nowadays my writing is less slanted, but it's disjointed, alternating between print and script. If handwriting is indeed indicative of personality, then I am inconsistent and difficult to read.

High school typing class was the beginning of the end of my already weak penmanship skills. While slow to develop, I am now a crackerjack typist. I type fast, and I type hard. Childhood piano lessons likely had something to do with this. When completing a sentence that pleases me, I lift my right hand from the keyboard as though playing the final note of a concerto.

I couldn't imagine going back to writing everything longhand. It takes so long and makes editing such a sloppy process.

Still, handwriting can come through in a pinch. Back when I was doing my MA I was one of a half dozen students to volunteer at a communications conference being held here in Montreal. Our job was to register attendees. We worked with a computer system set up to automatically print nametags, and the printer would frequently malfunction. I remember watching one of my fellow volunteers curse and fight the machine, until the waiting attendee leaned over the desk and asked "Wouldn't it be easier if you just used a pen?" Appropriately enough, the man asking the question was Neil Postman, a well-known critic of society's increasing dependence on technology. It was the perfect quip from the perfect source, and it made my day. We handed him a writing utensil, he wrote out his name, and went on his way.

Postman's question came to mind on my last day of vacation in France this past July. My gracious hosts Guy and Mimi wanted to give me a jar of fresh homemade jam. Mimi scooped jam from the pot and into a jar, and Guy tasked himself with creating the label. He went to the computer, called up a word processing application, entered "Confiture de Peches, Mireille et Guy 2009", and initiated the print job. When the label came out, part of the text along the top was cut off. Guy fiddled with the word positioning, tried printing again, and again it came out incorrectly. So he tried again. And again. And again and again and again, his frustration mounting with each failed attempt, ruined sheets of labels littering the floor. After a half hour's struggle, he got it. The result was lovely, but the effort and waste involved was ridiculous.

Wouldn't it be easier if you just used a pen?

Such instances aside, I don't have much call for putting pen to paper nowadays. Aside from greeting cards, the only things I write out are grocery lists, the occasional cheque, and my signature on credit card receipts. Now that my credit card is chip-enabled, the opportunities to practice signing my own name will continue to dwindle.

And once Grandma Diggins passes away, there will be that much less incentive for me to try.

In the years before my Grandma Berube's death in 2001, her decline was visible in the cards she sent. As her motor control and mental faculties weakened, her letters became more spidery. This year my aunt Cathy wrote out Christmas cards on behalf of Grandma Diggins.

I've kept some of what they've sent over the years. The sight of their script means as much as the messages they convey.

(Note: Both cards are from 1995. The first is from Grandma Diggins, and the second from Grandma Berube.)

My awkward handwriting is not indicative of a loss of mental faculties. Not yet anyway.

But it does signal a certain kind of forgetting.