After a hiatus of 16 months or so, I picked up handwriting again. To be more precise: to put down random letters, words and sentences, pen on paper, as a sort of Western calligraphy, handwriting practice. With a fountain pen. A ballpoint gel-based roller is also ok, as long as it’s hard steel on paper.

1st observation: Random?

I was urged to, by myself, something inside myself, to a degree that I filled 4 letter sized (A4) pages today, with letters, words and sentences, as they came to me, as they befell my mind; or fell out of my mind, into my hand, onto the paper. It’s the most curious thing.

In hindsight, reading such a page, days later, it’s like, as if, it’s not a finished work of fiction at all, but it’s like a most curious, interconnected and surprising, collection of letters, words, and sentences.

Almost as if secrets, not just random music, but meaningful word combinations reveal themselves. It’s almost like reading the writing of someone… else, something else, a prophet, maybe, someone with a wider view on things, a playful spirit, connected to the vastness of life.

It’s the most curious thing.

2nd observation: The grip is not what the name suggests it is

I noticed that my grip is not a tripod grip, even though I was told so, and thought so for the longest time, but it’s not. I do hold the pen and form a three-point support with my thumb, index finger and middle finger, but there’s one more point, 3+1.

Therefore, it’s a four-point contact. The barrel (the long body of the pen that houses the converter) is leaning against the outside edge of my pointer finger, more precisely: the 2nd and 1st segment, but mostly the base joint of my pointer finger. This is not just a leaning, but an important measure to generate force, indispensable to guide the tip of the pen firmly and confidently over the paper, as the steel etches the ink upon and into it.

3rd observation: Beholden

In terms of handwriting, I’ve built some stamina and better technique over the past few days. Two years ago I chose the Austrian handwriting model (Österreichische Schulschrift 1995) as my base model for learning proper handwriting, and that has been my standard for imitation, to copy through meticulous observation and analysis, to break each letter down into its components and then put them together again, until last week.

Because suddenly, inspired by a trip to Taiwan, something transformed my approach: my experience of the Feldenkrais Method, which over the past 20 years or so, became my second nature, my first nature of movement maybe, it’s in my blood now, it bled into my writing, informed it, changed it. Suddenly, I worked on variations of each loop, stroke, hook, connection, which in turn vastly improved my proficiency with the strict base model, it vastly improved my skillfulness, virtuosity, working with the base model.

Now, as I put down my pen tonight, I had a hard time doing so.

Behold! My body and mind was beholden. They wanted to continue. A pull, a longing in my hand, in my soul, almost like a command, a gentle but uncompromising takeover, like a dog that really wants to enter a room, or a cat that wants some food.

And suddenly I realised, handwriting is no kids play. No kidding.

All my life I was, like, “Handwriting? Get out of here!“

Sure, I acknowledged it as a most important Kulturtechnik, writing and literacy acquisition as a cultural technique, but character forming? Important for children? Important for character development? “Getoutofhere!“

Yet, suddenly, tonight, when I commanded myself to stop, to go for a walk, to sit down at a coffee shop and write this blog post instead, I had this insight… I saw these famous writers, in my minds eye, Stefan Zweig, Roald Dahl, Franz Kafka, Virgina Wolf, Ernest Hemingway… I could never even imagine, phantom, how they did it, yet they proved it… but how did they do it… how would someone even be able to write more than a few pages by hand, let alone entire novels!

It occured to me, yes discipline, yes, but maybe no. Maybe they had no other choice. Maybe they had been driven by something else. Maybe they became the pen, beholden, behold the heavens!

Bottomline, as of tonight, my awe, reverence, and to use this old word: “fear”… of handwriting… is up, a thousand percent.