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Mon 7 Nov, 2005 08:20 pm
The last two days I have been on a mission to throw stuff away. I've been going through my house getting rid of stuff. It feels so good. I'm working on getting my life down to no unessential stuff.
But I cannot convince myself to throw away anything that has a person that I love's handwriting on it.
I have every greeting card ever sent to me. I have weird tablets of scrawls that make no sense to me but remind me of my dad, seeing his handwriting is like seeing proof of his existence. No photograph gives me the same experience.
Seeing someone's handwriting makes me lonely for them.
There is a Chinese proverb that says "The palest ink is better than the best memory".
I hardly write anything down anymore. I sign my name to stuff but that's about it. Grocery lists. Post it notes. Reminder junk.
What about you? Do you keep your pale ink? Are you leaving any pale ink?
Does handwriting haunt you like it does me?
I write a lot by hand - postcards, notes, you name it, I'll write
it. Before I use my computer, type something and print it out,
I prefer writing it by hand.
I know what you mean, boomer, but I seldom write longhand. Had you ever seen it, you would understand.
I do the same, any stupid little note from my boyfriend, I can't part with. It could say anything, it can be a grocery list and I still have to steel myself to throw it away.
Oh, I'm the same way, boomer. Especially with anything handwritten by someone who has died. I have the most wonderful samples of my dad's handwriting, and it brings him back to me like nothing else can. He wrote so beautifully...every word was made up of painstakingly, exquisitely hand-drawn letters. I always tried to copy his handwriting.
I just got a four page letter from my cousin Patty, trust me, I hardly ever get letters from her... much less 4 handwritten pages. These are gold and only one day arrived...
My mom has beautiful handwriting. Uncontrived and fluid. I like to watch her write.
I take after my dad - a weird combination of cursive and print, legible only to thos who know me.
I have a journal that I keep for my attorney. It lists contacts Mo has with his bio-parents. It's pretty skimpy.
I was thinking - what if this was the only thing he could ever find with my handwriting in it. What a sad thing.
I didn't know if anyone else felt the same way I do about finding handwritten things. If, in the future, someone might treasure something I'd written down - even if it was something incomprehesible like the stuff I have of my dad's.
Maybe I'll start tying to keep a handwritten journal of some sort. Something with happier stuff....
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