On Poor Penmanship
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I like to say that my Dad was our gravity.
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Our family needed his cool head, his calm nature, his sweet, kind-hearted perception of each of us.
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He saw us.
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Perhaps the single most important action we can take in loving someone well is to reflect back to them who they truly are.
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After he passed, we were left floating, feet kicking for ground that never came.
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Despite being a writer, despite even teaching journaling exercises in my workshops, I’ve actually never been one to “journal” regularly.
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I have terrible penmanship.
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I’m a slow writer by hand.
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By contrast, I’m a super quick typer. My hands tick away at the keys as fast as my brain works.
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For years, I’ve kept a “journal” word doc on my computer. It’s been OKAY.
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But this summer, I felt called to buy an ACTUAL journal.
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To write by hand.
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At first, it felt awkward.
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Frustrating even.
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I hated my ugly handwriting.
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The words came in chunks.
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I considered giving it up.
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But then I came across a box of my Dad’s things.
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His passport. Some books. Old coins from world travels.
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And a case containing his gold Cross pen.
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He wore it tucked into his shirt pocket every single day.
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It made me remember his handwriting.
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Messy. Impossible to read. Swirls outside the margins.
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The pen was out of ink. So I filled it with a new cartridge. And I’ve been using it ever since.
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I write in my journal and feel a little bit of his wisdom.
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I see my messy writing coming from his pen and it doesn’t seem so bad anymore.
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The swirls outside the margins remind me of a time when someone saw my mess as something beautiful.
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I’ve begun to recognize the benefit of my mind slowing to the pace of my hand.
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I don’t judge the look of it anymore.
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And to me, that’s something worth writing about.