I’ve often wondered about my handwriting and what it says about me.  I look back at some of my high school textbooks, and the notes I made in the margins.  Everything is sharp angles, sort of tortured-looking.  I remember being pretty happy as a teenager, except when it came to acne.  Boy, I had a case of it!  Is that what all those straight and fractured lines were about?

As an intinerant teacher of visually impaired students, at least before I had grown a laptop on my fingertips, I walked around countless classrooms with an 8.5 x 11″ lined pad of paper as my weapon of choice.  Okay, not a weapon, but I sure scribbled like a madman.  Reams of paper, with the script unintelligible to others, and sometimes to me.  I created frantic slashes of ink, afraid to miss a single salient point about the Grade 5 kid with cataracts.  Somehow, I later wrote reasonably cogent reports about said children.

Another venue for my pen-like expressions were, and still are, 3 x 5″ index cards, on which I have purported to record the collective wisdom of mankind, as revealed in a ton of spiritual and philosophic books.  Sitting in my man chair, relaxing through chapter after chapter, I knew there’s no hurry, so I expected that my handwriting would flow like the blessings of the universe.  Nope.  Instead, another type of penmanship showed up.

Despite the peace which I’ve usually felt as I’ve contemplated thoughts for the ages, my hand does not follow suit.  Too often, I cross t’s and dot i’s before the whole word has been revealed.  I have trouble with the “ng” combo at the end of words.  Recording those letters should be a graceful experience.  Instead, my hand stutters as I try to make the end of the “n” reach towards the top of the “g”.  My pen dives down rather than up, in a spasm of jerkiness.

As I near the right end of the card, I try to cram more words in, while I could just leave lots of space as I wander onto the next line.  The same when I’m nearing the end of the whole card.  More!  More!  Stuff it in.  How very silly, and worrisome, to me.  What kind of spiritual path am I on if I can’t let go with a pen in my hand?

I decided yesterday not to worry about the beauty of my script.  “Just go slow, Bruce, and see where that takes you.  Feel the essence of pen peace.”  But then I glimpse the possibility that any flow or non-flow of my writing is fine.  Let it all be there.  Be a “jerk” if that’s what your hand leads you to.  So I’ve chosen to do exactly that.  It’s all groovy, even though I have visions of a highly evolved soul and hand working in blissful tandem.  Maybe next lifetime.