Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Goal for the Next Three Months

So, I've developed a new goal to meet before I go off.  I want to be able to (re)learn how to write in cursive.  By this I mean not only the mechanics, but I want to find fluency in cursive, a fluency that reflects, in some way, my personality.  I hope this comes naturally.  

The reason for this is that I hope to send letters from wherever I am to wherever you all are.  When I think about the beauty of handwritten correspondences, I think back to the letters Grandy, my grandmother, showed me.  They were, if I remember correctly, letters from her mother who was in Italy at the time.  The handwriting was envious in its ability to spark the imagination about life in Europe at the turn of the 20th century.  

I wonder, given my absurd print, if I will be able to reach this goal and develop a handwriting that is personally meaningful.  I also wonder if, years down the line, someone will look at my handwriting and create lands of wonder, completely devoid of factual basis, as I did lo these many years ago.  

Will my script fit the day as seamlessly as my great-grandmother?  Will there be any standard with which to compare my letters?  Was the connection of her elegant script with the time period in which it was converted from liquid to meaning a factually baseless one?  If so, where the hell did I get off thinking I could link the two?  

2 comments:

DCD said...

Cameron,

This entry makes me smile. So, you are off soon; have you indeed perfected an authentic script? If not, I think even your absurd print will someday inspire worlds of wonder!

Sincerely,
Danielle Caskey Durbin

conscientizacao said...

Well if I've made someone smile, then its all been worth it, especially when that someone is one of my oldest friends from Austin.

An update-I have gotten much, much better in my script. Incidentally, my script actually resembles that of Pappy, my grandfather on the other side of my family. Strange.

It's very North and South, vertical, and not very loopy and elegant. But then again, neither am I.