20150928.0620

I have been working over the past couple of days to get back into the habit of daily journal-keeping. That it should be daily is embedded in the word itself; that it has not been daily has been noted in this webspace before, I think. So far, things are going well; I want to keep them going more or less well, even amid the many other things I have to do each day. Work continues, after all, as it seemingly ever must, and even now, I have a freelance job in progress for which I need to do some quick reading and even quicker writing.

Part of why I have returned to the dedicated effort of doing so is that I recalled something I learned at Cambridge a few years back. While there, I attended a lecture and demonstration given by a calligrapher; the man's name is recorded in the journal I kept while on the trip, but that journal is not where I can get it at the moment, as I do not want to wake the still-sleeping Mrs. He noted, among others, that part of the calligrapher's art is the way of sitting; another is the way of breathing. An erect posture and deep, even breathing do much to make possible and make better the work of the pen-hand, and mine needs bettering, to be sure. As I have returned to my journal-keeping, I have done so while making an effort not only to take the notes typically associated with journaling, but also to make those notes in a script that, while I doubt it will ever be good, is at least regular and expressive.

For I was reminded that handwriting is an art, both by my academic studies and the chain of association the recalled calligrapher's comments made to link itself to my poor and all-too-inept martial arts studies. Judo and aikido both benefit from considerations of posture and of breath, doing better when the one is upright and stable and the other is deep and even. Both also remind me that too tight a grip is wasteful and distracting. Waza should proceed without effort; if they must be forced to work, they are not being performed properly. Similarly, I have spent long gripping pens tightly, pushing them where I want them to go; I have been working these past few days to adapt a lesson I remember from my time on the mats and open space for the pen to enter into, leading it rather than forcing it.

It is too early for me to tell if my efforts are making things better for the quality of my script. I suspect that they are not; twenty-six years of a poor pen-hand are not elided in an instant. But I do feel better about the endeavor; I feel as if I am doing something that is at least like art, and I have felt the lack of such expression, such humanization, keenly of late. Although work continues, I remain human, and I need to be fully human. My wife and daughter need me to be so. Working with a pen in my hand is a help to that, so that even if my script never gets better, the act of writing is one worth pursuing.