Watching Someone Else Write
Mar 19th, 2008 by satisfyte
Chances are if you’ve ever attended a school anywhere, you’ve watched someone write. You may not have really paid attention to it and gone on with your day, or you might have been like us Satisfites and been a deliberate voyeur. There are a lot of people out there with messy handwriting, so watching someone struggle through chicken scratches on a fringed up notebook paper is probably not your idea of satisfaction. But you know there was always at least one girl in your classroom whose handwriting looked like it could have been printed from a computer.
I’m not talking about that bubbly, “I dot my i’s with hearts because my name is Courtney but I like to spell it Courtni” fodder. It will do in a pinch, but it’s no substitute for the ultimate neatnik penmanship. Though it can be somewhat satisfying to watch someone with fake nails scribe out a font that pushes the limits of a wide ruled notebook, it’s far more satisfying to watch someone who has amazing penmanship, and better yet, doesn’t even really know or care. Meticulous handwriters can be a chore to watch, but someone who writes fluidly and consistently, particularly with a gel pen, can be a real treat.
Perhaps your infatuation with this art started while standing in line at the grocery store watching your mom fill out a check (who else would write a check at the grocery store?), or maybe you didn’t even know that you loved it until I just got you thinking about it now. After all, that’s kind of the point of this blog - to remind you of all of the situations in your life that you’ve subtly enjoyed but haven’t fully appreciated until we’ve put the full blast of satisfaction into perspective for you.
Whatever the case, if you haven’t started watching people write, I suggest you try it. Notice the way they hold their pen, what type of ink or graphite they’re using, if their printed letters leave little dents in the page (even better). Just try to mask your giddy anticipation when you approach a penmansmith (new word, embrace it) in your school or office and say, “You know, I’m going to forget. Could you write it down for me?”
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I used to absolutely love to watch the teachers write on the chalkboard at school, especially when I was really little and there were those taped lines to guide the letters, with the dotted lines in between, like a road for writing. I think what I loved even more, though, was the sound the chalk made on the chalk board. That little clicking or tapping noise was so very comforting to me. I can’t explain why, but I would close my eyes and love it.