I was waiting in line to check out some books at the library. The line was long and moving slowly. A woman in her 60s, whom I didn’t know, moved closer to the step where I was standing. She seemed to be eyeing one of the books I was carrying. Actually, she was looking at the piece of paper that I had stuck between two of the pages.
“Would you like to show me a sample of your handwriting?” she asked.
I was taken off-guard. I gave her a skeptical look.
“I can tell people’s personality traits from their handwriting. Care to give it a try?”
I surprised myself by saying, “Sure,” and gave her the piece of paper. She glanced at it, and within seconds gave me an accurate rundown of five or six traits that sounded an awful lot like me.
While calligraphy is the art of handwriting, graphoanalysis is the psychology of handwriting — deciphering who a person is from his or her handwriting. It’s not only what we write, but how we write it, that reveals who we are to the world.
Some of you recall when handwriting was a big deal. Once there was even a subject in school called “penmanship.” The other day a colleague recalled the way in which students were drilled in the art of penmanship. The teacher handed out inexpensive paper stock, ruled in a special way, with a series of two bold lines with a dotted line in between. The top bold line was the ceiling for the capital letters, while the dotted line in the middle was the ceiling for the small letters. Each student had only to look at the cards mounted above the blackboard to see the ideal for which they were to strive – crisp, clear, bold, rounded letters – beautiful to behold.
I’ve never met a person whose handwriting looks like that. What happened? Despite all of the practicing in front of those golden letters, every student’s handwriting ended up looking … well, like the inside of the person holding the pencil. The personality burst through.
As we change, our handwriting changes. For example, there’s a huge difference between my handwriting today and the handwriting found on the high school essays I saved. As we age, our personalities develop and grow. We become more of who we are.
As the computer has taken over the written word, have we — and our children — lost a valuable heritage? I recently saw a sample of handwriting from 1,300 years ago. It was the reproduction of a page from the Lindisfarne Gospels, an illuminated manuscript written in the early 8th century. I touched the page. I felt a human connection to the Irish monk who labored to get it just right. I had the same feeling at a recent art exhibit, where a yard-high manuscript of the Book of Job, done by a contemporary artist in the style of the ancient manuscripts, was displayed. A spelling mistake made him seem even more human to me.
After my parents died, I cleaned out their home and found a treasure — a yellowed shoebox containing the correspondence during their courtship more than 60 years ago. I read a few sentences of one of my father’s love letters to my mother and stopped. It was personal, so personal that the emotional connection was palpable. I put the letter back. I needed to respect their privacy.
I have a computer. One reason I like it is because it lets me write this column efficiently. But efficiency is no substitute for emotion. A handwritten letter makes a direct, personal connection in a way that a printed e-mail never can.
Next time your children get a birthday present from Uncle Jeff, why not take the opportunity to sit down with them and teach them the satisfaction that only a patient, handwritten thank-you note can bring? When Grandpa’s and Grandma’s birthdays come around, help the kids pull out their paints and crayons and hand-design a card with bold colors and funny sayings. Who says the age of illuminated manuscripts is over?
I wonder what our legacy to future generations will be — a shoebox of handmade cards from your children hidden in Grandma’s closet or a collection of hard-drives with deleted e-mails?
(Pankratz is a marriage and family therapist for Catholic Charities Milwaukee regional office.)
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