Just Jot it January 23 – A little compromise…

le 23 janvier, 2017

Happy National Handwriting Day!

Actually, I didn’t even know this day existed before seeing it on the website of my favorite pen vendors, (Goulet Pens ) but now I am aware that the Writing Instrument Manufacturers Association created this day back in 1977 to promote the use of pens and pencils, etc.  In fact, it is the birthday of the famed Declaration of Independence signer John Hancock.  I found a great article about it <here> .

I am an ardent fan of le stylo plume and I have several of them. To me, there has never been anything much more fun than going to an office supply store and looking at pens, pencils, and papers. You’d think I was a great journaler, wouldn’t you? Alas, no. But I do love the handwritten letter. I haven’t always been consistent at writing them, but I did have pen-pals when I was young, and finding those letters after all these years when I look through boxes of “memorabilia” is always a pleasure! I wonder what the current generation will have left to “discover” when they get older. An old iPhone 3 that they can’t even turn on? No cute little folded notes from boyfriends and girlfriends in school, surreptitiously passed from one hand to another so the teacher wouldn’t see? No, the biggest challenge now must be remembering to silence the phone you’re not supposed to be using to text on during class. And there will be nothing left of that text to discover later on in life when you’re feeling a bit nostalgic.

 

Handwriting is special, unique, fun! I find that even my own handwriting changes over time. I think everyone kind of starts out writing cursive like a shaky equivalent of the grade school textbook. Then you start trying out different ways to write your capital letters, or you start dotting your ‘i’s with circles or little hearts for a while. There was a time when I tried to print everything in a squarish, gothic-type font, a phase where I wrote lower-case ‘d’s with an upward swoop to the left instead of the traditional loop or straight stem, and I wrote every lower-case e like a backwards ‘3’.  But I have always admired my mother’s handwriting.  It’s perfectly consistent, seemingly effortless, with the perfect slant and not too much frill. That’s the one I still strive to emulate.

Anyway, here’s my “compromise” for National Handwriting Day. I hand-wrote a note to you, chers lecteurs, but I can’t mail it to you so I took a digital picture of it for you. It’s not like getting a real live letter in the mail, but in the age of technology, it’s a good compromise, I think.

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“Just Jot It January” – The spectacular-anyone-can-join-fantabulous-month-of-blogging  created by the Super Hero Linda G Hill! If you click on the link above or the picture at the bottom of the post, you’ll find the proper link to learn all the rules !

 

The Just Jot It January 23rd prompt, brought to you by Ritu of But I Smile Anyway is: “Compromise.” Use it any way you’re inspired to. And make sure you stop by and say hi to Ritu as well! Here’s her blog: https://butismileanyway.com/