Writing on the wall of heaven
A few words, images and reading from Woolgathering
Yesterday my daughter Jesse’s Substack post celebrated National Handwriting Day. I had no idea there was such a day but was pleased that one exists and loved reading her words. They took me back to my own journey learning to form words. When I was attending grade school we practiced our penmanship with dipping pens and ink. It was a messy proposition but I loved it. My father had exquisite handwriting and I wished to have the same. I would invariably have ink stains on the heels of my hand, and blots on my shirt sleeve but my cursive letters were vastly evolving.
My dream was to write like the authors of the Declaration of Independence and I copied it line by line at separate intervals of my life. I mentioned this in a piece called Drawing in my book Woolgathering. So today I will read a fragment of it, and crosspost Jesse’s wonderful meditation on the miracle of handwriting.
I wish I could show take a photo of my bed, where I was just reading from one of my most cherished possessions: the Arion Press’s 2022 edition of your “Wollgathering,” with Christian Marclay’s exquisite photograms. What was I reading? “All Men are Brothers. would that it were true,” and I turned to it because earlier I was on the phone with a pharmacist trying to procure a medication I need in order to live, not the kind one can miss a dose of without needing to be hospitalized, which, a year ago today I was, and nearly died. The pharmacist was being unkind and so I said, without hostility, “You’re not being nice to me.” To which she replied: “Nice? There’s no nice” - and that phrase has been tormenting me like a hideous ear-worm for hours. About the whole world if it ever was nice, if it ever was kind.
I find that the only thing to do in such a case is to replace the ugly words with beautiful ones - but the beauty doesn’t work if it doesn’t also include the acknowledgment that we are not kind to one another. So I made myself a cup of tea and pulled down my cherished copy of “Woolgathering.” “All Men are Brothers. Would that it were true” has been my mantra for the past hour. And then I see this. It’s absolutely uncanny. Thank you, Patti, and warm wishes to everyone, especially for the kindness herein.
I am left handed. When I would come home from school my mother always asked me why had ink all over my hand. I couldn’t answer because I didn’t realize at the time that my right handed brother dragged the pen behind his hand as he wrote. Left handed people must push the pen in front of their hand, thus our hand is forced into the wet ink. I figured it out after some time.