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 love that I read this after doing a drawing workshop with inks. Synchronicity. Lovely post, thank you Patti. Gx
Patti...Hi...as we are the same age I too have memories of those inkwell days, and I still use the Dylan phrase "hang around the inkwell." I abandoned cursive long ago regretfully allowing self doubt to replace practice. I still love looking at my father's handwriting... I think of those long novels by Tolstoy or Hugo written by hand or Baudelaire and Nerval roaming the streets of Paris with a jar of ink in pocket...and of course the tattoo a forever reminder of the lasting influence of ink. Thanks.