Consistent Cursive

If you’ve been reading my letters, you know I write them using the Palmer Method. It’s really the only way I care to write these days. Of course, there are other ways to write beautiful cursive, but none interest me.

I wish I could send each of you an actual letter in the mail. Something happens when these letters are scanned, something changes. Perhaps I should photograph these letters instead. Maybe that would preserve a little more of their energy. Unfortunately, photography is not one of the many things I have dabbled in, and I’m trying to put my days of dabbling behind me.

I found myself doing a little Palmer Method practice earlier today, prompted by some samples of penmanship sent to me by a young penman, @BrallanAlonzor.

The most important thing about writing is freedom. Maybe it’s the only thing that truly matters. Learning the forms and getting better at executing them is fun, but once you’ve acquired a serviceable hand, it’s really just a chase that might impress a few people or make you [feel] a little better about yourself. Of course, for every person you impress, there will be two critics. And for every letter or word that makes you feel good, there will be ten that make you feel inadequate.

There’s two kind[s] of students that take my courses: 1) more experienced, or senior, individuals who learned cursive long ago and wish to revisit the lessons of their youth and 2) less experienced, or younger, individuals who never learned cursive and feel like they missed out on something.

It seems like every week I’m into something new. It’s amazing I studied penmanship almost daily for 4 years. This week, I got it in my head that I was going to sell my iPhone and start using a flip phone instead. So I start doing all this research, on my iPhone about flip phones, trying to find the perfect phone that will free me from my screen addiction. At some point I realized that I could just delete a bunch of apps on my iPhone and essentially accomplish the same thing.

Someone suggested that I handwrite these messages and I thought that was a great idea. I will also type out the letter for easier reading. I think writing by hand will result in better content, or at least different content.