Corona times are not fun, but at least you can use the time at home to study something new – something you wouldn’t normally spend time with. Experimenting.
Last year, I studied American Cursive, just to learn an interesting looking monoline script. The instruction book I used (Tamblyn’s Home Instructor in Penmanship) has two parts, the 2nd one continues with Spencerian. It wasn’t my original aim when I bought it, but hey, now that I have it!
So, Spencerian takes the monoline a level higher and adds pressure (there is a bit more, but essentially, they’re related). Instead of a regular pen, you have to use a pointed nib. The tricky thing is that the pressure is only applied on very few positions, and if, you have to press the nib really hard. It was a fun challenge, but I have to admit: it took me a quite while to learn it.
The poem is called ‘Adrift’ from Mark Nepo.
Just in case you have difficulties with reading the text, here is the typed version with matching line breaks.
Everything is beautiful and I am so sad.
This is how the heart makes a duet
of wonder and grief.
The light spraying through the lace of the fern
is as delicate as the fibers of memory
forming their web around the knot in my throat.
The breeze makes the birds move
from branch to branch
as this ache makes me look
for those I’ve lost
in the next room, in the next song,
in the laugh of the next stranger.
In the very center, under it all,
what we have that no one can take away
and all that we’ve lost face each other.
It is there that I’m adrift,
feeling punctured by a holiness
that exists inside everything.
I am so sad and everything is beautiful.
