Contemplations on Cursive

I’ve been journaling since I was a young mother. I started in hopes to document my first pregnancy and it took off after that.

Remember the gratitude journal? I was there for that startup and stuck with it for a long time. “Write five things you are grateful for each day.”

My journals became my refuge during the busy childbearing years. My solace before my day began – a place to write my goals, dreams or achievements, or a place to dump my frustrations and anxiety at the end of the day after little ones were tucked into bed.

Journaling traveled with me to Grand Bahama Island where I lived for thirteen years. I was given journals as gifts or purchased them on my own, selecting beautiful book covers when I was out shopping. In some, I was able to draw images portraying the events of the day or the emotions I was feeling. I’d often tuck a photo or newspaper clipping or ticket in to remember a moment.

Over time, with the speed-up of my life, the internet as our primary communication tool, and mostly the onslaught of social media, getting to my journal became more and more difficult. Daily writings became weekly, and then I’d find three months had passed, and I’d have to recall the highlights and quickly jot them in.

But despite being so busy and absorbed with social media and my other writing pursuits (I support several websites and social media channels), I noticed something else was happening.

I was not enjoying the feeling of the pen in my hand on the paper any longer. What used to be a pleasure of putting ink down on a fresh page, was becoming a chore. My cursive writing, which has never been great, was slowing become less and less legible.

I began finding I was becoming exhausted by the physical exercise of moving my hand along the page itself and frustrated that I could not write in cursive or print as fast as I can type. It was like having a slow computer or having to select too many fields on a computer task, you know over time there are ways to speed things up and save valuable time.

When my children were in school I noticed they were not using cursive much. I recall one high school teacher saying in a parent-teacher meeting that cursive was on the way out. Even spelling will not be a concern, as we’ll have spellcheck to review our writing. That hit me hard. Would my kids not have cursive as a skill?

Over time, I’ve found out he was absolutely right. When my teenagers would say, “Mom I couldn’t understand the note you left on the counter…” I also knew things were changing.

I look back at my rows of journals and wonder if they were put in a time capsule if people of the future would require a specialist or historian to read them? Cursive will become our secret code or ancient language.

And perhaps one day, when I’m not quite so busy, I’ll buy that beautiful pen and some lovely bound white crisp paper, and take another crack at slowing down and writing daily. Until then, it’s just driving me crazy.

I will keep fond memories of chalk writing from elementary school, as my teacher would write her name so beautifully across the board, and the pages and pages of scribblers I had to fill to practice my cursive letters in with my HB pencil Scribblers? Yeah, that’s about right!