My handwriting is handsome, very when I set my mind to it: upright, rounded, legible, compact. Younger, I could write tiny in the margins of books. When people compliment my handwriting, I smile, taking foolish pride in the paucity of strikeouts, carats, and other second thoughts.

            I am writing longhand now, in my journal. My journals these days are leatherbound and expensive, my little luxury, as if I were composing a book. When I’m dead, some weary heir could turn their pages comfortably and perhaps get interested. “He had nice handwriting anyway,” they may sigh.

            My journals’ paper is a yellowish ivory, grainy and imperfect – “handcrafted,” its manufacturers assert, whatever that might mean. Shopkeepers would shelve them near other products pitched as “artisanal,” a broad vague term. Purchasers of such products are quietly protesting modernity. Sentimentalists, we may sigh for a simpler hour while rejoicing in the abundant benefits of the present. (Born a generation earlier, I’d have been dead by now, for example.)

            My pen, you’ll be relieved to hear, is not a quill dipped in ink. I use rolling ball pens with a medium-fine point, which I buy in bulk and chew through at a prodigal clip. These little marvels of technology dispense their black ink (always black) in a flow as even as a Zen master’s breathing. They enable me to write, if not well, at least trimly.

            Orthography is, of course, a vanishing skill, obsoleted by word-processing, that ghastly term. Processed words bring to mind processed cheese, inedible to even a half-trained palate. I worship word-processing. It speeds composition, facilitates revision, and brings you and me together each day. Bless its creators! Sadly, it dishonors language, transforming it into content (with the first syllable stressed). It has no taste, ear, discrimination or appreciation for the wonder of human utterance. It would measure a cathedral by seating capacity, not its attitude toward the divine.

            Shortly I will “input” the words I am shaping now. Though I’ve gotten pretty good at anticipating my six-hundredth word, the laptop will tally exactly. Processing will improve my prose by making editing instant. (Pre-word-processing introducing a change into one’s copy was so arduous one had to decide whether to bother.) Before loading and scheduling this missive in my mail-server – all these new functionalities! – I’ll reread it several times, invariably tweaking, blessing my program’s uncomplaining acquiescence and, on occasion, spelling suggestions.  (How often have I typed “there” for “their”, knowing better.)

            My reverence for the written, as opposed to processed, word, is folly, I confess. Love never makes sense, can never be justified by fact. My ladylove is the most beautiful on earth because I rate her so, not because she won a pageant. Ditto my grandchildren and puppy Henry. Writing longhand is inarguably impractical, inefficient, and expensive, yet I reach for my journal as one might for a psalter. I am not processing here but praying, humbling myself before an infinite authority, beseeching grace. Even to limn the transaction feels blasphemous – only Pharisees make a show of praying; but my promise to myself and you with our daily outings is to try not to duck any topic that feels discussable.

            A further advantage of writing by hand is it forces me to listen. I can type faster than I can speak – and do when my words are perfunctory. Writing anything I hope will prove memorable is, for me, as much a musical as a mindful endeavor. Writing out a word – like “endeavor” – I admire the stately minuet of its four consonants and four vowels. It really is a beautiful word.