How can you read this? the auction-goer said incredulously. He was being nosy, trying to read the notes I had written as I made my way through the auction house. I always jot down notes and take photos (with my Droid) of the items I want to bid on or write about.
On this night a week ago, I had rested my small notepad on a glass counter so I could handle a very heavy and beautiful Seth Thomas chime clock. The auction-goer, a regular whom I knew, had peeked down at the pad.
I turned and said: I can read it. But then I admitted that I always go over my notes afterward while the info is still fresh in my mind. My penmanship isn’t what it used to be, I said.
Penmanship, he joked. That’s a big word you’re using. Not only was it a big word, but I realized that no one talks about or uses it anymore. We don’t seem to be as concerned about whether anyone can read what we’ve written.
In an electronic world of texting and Twitter, very few people seem to write on paper anymore. As a reporter I remember writing my stories in longhand and then transfering them to first a typewriter and later a computer. I still have not mastered the art of the 140-character Twitter or the lingo of texting. I’m big on correct spelling, so abbreviating a word doesn’t sit well with me. I’m not sure if I even want to go there.
Interestingly – or serendipitously – this week, my local newspaper published an article about how some schools were returning to the teaching of penmanship. They recognized how technology had changed the writing habits of their students and wanted to do something about it.
As for my own writing, I sometimes have to stare at a word or phrase for a minute or two to figure out what the heck it is. The bad penmanship happens when my right hand moves too slowly for my brain, and the hand races to keep up. Most times, the brain wins, and my words look like scribbles.
It’s even more difficult when I forget to take a pad to auction. So I’m forced to use whatever’s available. It could be a business card (of an artist at an antique mall whose works I liked) or the back of a bid card (I use those a lot) or a copy of an antique newspaper (at a doll auction, which included some black dolls) or paper napkins (at a Rockwell exhibit) or bid sheets (right near the names of the items) or a sheet of paper I got from the person I was interviewing (maker of Christmas Santas from antique molds).
I’ve even written on programs in the dark during performances of Broadway shows. And I could understand every word when I later reviewed the notes.
As a reporter some years ago, I developed my own shorthand and process for taking notes, and I still use it. After an interview, I always go over my notes. For a word that is illegible, I print a clearer version of it right above the word. When I come across something I cannot figure out, I don’t use the information unless I can find it from another source or decipher it based of the context of the sentence.
At auctions, I tend to write fast to get to the next item or to put down my impressions before they evaporate from my mind or capture snatches of conversations I overhear. Even without the notes, I’m able to recall what I saw and heard once I get home.
That’s when I know that my brain and hand have actually been working together to paint a picture in my head of both the item and the info the hand had written. Years ago, I realized that’s how I remember things: I’m a visual learner. And it has worked out well for me.
