I made a decision the other day. I am going to write in my journal using cursive as often as possible.
Usually I mix things up in my entries. My handwriting has consisted of the use of all caps, sometimes proper capitalization with small letters following, sometimes messy script, and sometimes careful cursive, although my use of cursive has been less and less.
Then I heard that schools were phasing lessons in cursive out of their curriculum. I guess it’s easy to see why. Most communication today involves the use of devices and typing, and now those devices are easy to carry at all times. No need to jot a quick note on paper when you can pull up an app for that, no need to mark a hanging calendar when you can do it online and sync it to all your family members, no need to leave a message on the refrigerator when you can send a quick text instead. Communicating through technology is much faster and efficient which, ironically, was the purpose of cursive when we used it.
It’s hard not to feel a sense of loss. I worked hard at cursive in grade school. I couldn’t wait to progress from block letters to wavy lines of script. It was so beautiful and stylish, making romantic phrases even more so with its rolling curves and curlicues. There is an art to a written word that is, well, written. When I reviewed letters from my past, I could see anger, love, laughter, sadness, and care in the connected lines and the arcs and slopes. Cursive flows in a way that eases thoughts and feelings without hindrance onto paper.
Don’t get me wrong. It’s nice to not have to translate messy writing, my own included. Keyboards make writing easier too, for whatever reason, and I long ago left handwriting and cursive to use them, save for my journal. But now that cursive may be leaving us, I feel the need to preserve just a little bit of it for myself.
So cursive in the journal it is! Once I got over the horror of how bad my penmanship had deteriorated, I realized cursive might serve an even better purpose as well. Future generations might view it the way we now view hieroglyphics; deciphering my scrawling prate will be more of a challenge.That is a good thing!