I find it interesting that after so many years of not having to write in cursive, it is all of a sudden brought back into my life. That being said, I now realize why I made the choice to not keep up with it in the first place. It is a difficult form to write in. One that requires time and patience. Two things I had not yet acquired at the age I started learning cursive. I didn’t appreciate the cursive form then, it was too difficult whereas print was simpler and much easier to understand. Now that I am an adult and it has been brought back into my life, I can appreciate it more and actually take the time to learn the form and hopefully become a better hand-writer.
Other than those aspects, using the fountain pen for cursive writing does make it a much easier task to do. The way the ink flows out and hits the page. It barely feels like I’m even doing anything. Trying to use this form of writing with other pens, it feels like I’m carving a knife into a piece of board. The fluidity is gone.
I enjoy cursive writing now and this form of writing really is a beautiful one. The angles and curves, I feel that it really makes my notes, papers, whatever I may be writing, stand out just a little bit more from the rest. Probably because not many people write in cursive nowadays. The Rexroth poem really showed me how mindful you have to be when writing in cursive. You have to constantly be thinking about how your hand position is and at what angle your pen is at, even the shapes of the letters themselves. Writing in cursive again has showed me that you should be more patient with writing, especially if done in this form. It has also helped me in realizing that we as people rush things, we are constantly in a hurry, no matter what it may be, even if it is writing. This was one of the more difficult things I had trouble with when starting the poem. I wanted to rush and get it done instead of taking my time to make the poem as “perfect” as possible by being a mindful writer.
Minding Life 