Paper, pens, and pencils
It’s all happening.
Dear Reader,
This week I was texting with my favorite aunt and she was telling me how she made my grandmother's rice pudding for her granddaughter for the first time. Of course, her granddaughter, who is almost two, loved it so much that she first stuck one finger in to taste it, and followed this up with sticking her whole hand into the bowl. My aunt and I reminisced about the many times we ate the rice pudding together as a family while at my grandparents' house. I realized, that I didn't have the recipe, so I asked my aunt if she could text it to me. A couple of days later, I received a photo of the actually recipe written by my grandmother, and it struck me. While enjoying the rice pudding together as a family for so many years brought back wonderful memories, so did that piece of paper with the written recipe.
Do you still hand write notes and letters, dear reader? Maybe it's because of my writing background or my nature, but I do. I've kept handwritten journals for years, and I sometimes write notes to my kids that I leave around the house, particularly if I'm heading out and they're staying at home. Sure I could just text them, but there's something about seeing a handwritten note on the dining room table that somehow has more meaning. At least I think so. And I think they do too.
The written word on paper is tangible. You can touch it, hold it, feel it, and really have much more of an experience than you can from written communication on screens. I can't deny that I love the convenience of emails and texts, but still, have we lost something in the process? I'd have to say that to a degree, we certainly have, in the form of human connection and memories. Handwriting is so personal. It's like a fingerprint. Your handwriting says something about who you are as an individual. Is your writing flowy and loose, or compact and succinct. Is it neat and even, or perhaps somewhat illegible? There are a myriad of different ways we write, and don't they all say something about who we are? That's just the writing itself, before you even factor in what you're writing.
When I saw that recipe with my grandmother's handwriting, I was flooded with memories, most of which weren't even about the rice pudding. I thought about birthday cards, notes, grocery and to-do lists, photos with descriptions written on the back with the names of those from generations ago that I hadn't ever met.
Years ago when I was cleaning out my mud room I found a manual for my grandfather's grill that my grandmother had given me when he died. I paged through the manual, thinking of him, and on the very last page he had written a list of places where he could have the grill serviced with addresses and phone numbers. That snippet of his daily life from many years ago, written in his handwriting brought me to tears. Why? Not just because he was such an important person to me, just like my grandmother, but because it was a record, a moment of time, and it felt personal.
Another thing I was thinking about when considering what we have lost in the process of switching from paper to screens for our communication is how quickly our writing on screens can just disappear. Push a button and it's gone-poof, just like that. Once when I was writing my thesis, which, as a creative writing major was a huge body of my creative work, I left my disk (yes it was on a disk) in my car in Phoenix in the summer. Do you know what happened when I tried to open it? No words or letters, just symbols. My whole thesis that I had spent so much time working on, reduced to nothing. But, guess what? I always write everything out on paper first, so I was able to salvage the whole thing. I've always been grateful for pen and paper.
I hope you have a great week dear reader.
xo,
Christa
Thanks for reading-I’m glad you’re here.