STANDING THERE NAKED
Have you ever considered how much your writing reveals? I don’t mean what you write, I mean your handwriting. How you use what your grammar school teacher called the Palmer Method. It gives you away. Every time.
Take those long, loopy “y’s” and “g’s” at the end of a word when the final loop swings back up—that means you’re sensual and making the most of it. Those “a’s” that don’t quite close? You’re talkative, great company, but maybe, just maybe, you spill secrets. Like what happened last night at . . .
Is there a little hook at the beginning of capital letters such as “H,” say or “M?” If so, you want to keep a grasp on everything you’ve worked so hard to achieve. A husband? Those royalty checks? Then there are people who top off their lower case “i’s” with little round circles . . . . do you do that? Hmm.
For graphologists, hundreds of subtle nuances in strokes like these expose our well hidden selves, the ones we think we’re keeping private. The truth is that every time we take pen to paper, the story we’re really telling, whether we know it or not, is about ourselves.
But not to worry. The Age of Texting has arrived. We’ve been saved by the iPad. Or the Smart Phone. For who writes in cursive anymore? Writing with a pen is becoming a dying art. In fact some schools no longer teach cursive in the beginning grades. And u can 4get about spelling while you’re at it.
For those of us who make a career out of the written word, what we say has always been the primary way we reveal ourselves to others. So the loss of cursive writing may not affect us deeply.
Come to think of it, not having to take pen to paper may come as a big relief to a lot of people. Take the college sophomore who recently wrote a note to his Aunt Jane. She read it, realized he was depressed—she could tell from the way his final words drooped on the page—and told his mother to get to him immediately before something dire happened. All he thought he’d done was write a thank you for the Christmas fruitcake.
P.S. For an excerpt from Killer Kitchens, Jean’s latest cozy mystery, take a peek at www.jeanharrington.com. She didn’t take any chances at being psyched out through her penmanship though, so the whole excerpt is typed in Times New Roman.
