skidmhawk

[skidmhawk]

Pain in Penmanship

Core memory: by Mark Mulhern

When I was young, I often did not like going to the library. When I did go, it was to entertain my sister or just to look for books on-tape. When I read, my eyes would often go out of focus, zone-out and become really tired. I could only read a few pages at a time before I would close my eyes for rest. Because of this, I never grew an affinity towards reading, and in that, writing as well. To me, the adjectives, the nouns, the correctness, uses of portmanteau and the subjunctive etcetera is much to grapple with on top of reading blurry words. 

“I find it hard to write.”  

My reason is that my eyes hurt from reading and writing. Nonetheless, as we speak, a writer is conjuring up the next new fiction series that is on their way to the spotlight shelf and will win medals such as Newberry and Politzer Prize. I am slightly envious of that skill because I struggle with just initiating the writing. I am convinced that I am cursed with ‘writer’s block’ in perpetuity. Writing has always been a challenge and wonder if there is anyone who feels likewise. 

 A grade school rite of passage. 

When I first learned how to hold a pencil, I always felt it was a minor race to finish quickly and hope for the misery to end. Hearing myself say this even today about writing gives me a slight anxious feeling to write as quickly as possible. I am in such a hurry to get through what I consider to be an arduous task. At no point did I find pleasure in writing, but we do things we don’t feel like doing everyday. Per se, I do not want to get out of bed at 5 am to attend to requirements in my life, but I do it because it is required for survival and love of my family. 

The pencil grip: Flashback of the kindergarten years. Listen for creaking desks, smells of soybean ink, paper tracing on dotted lines and blowing off used eraser residue from ripped paper. 

Photo of pencil with attached pencil grip. Photo courtesy of Imgur: (https://imgur.com/gallery/pencil-grip-MCt66)

It started in Kindergarten when it was forced upon me to practice penmanship among the rest of the future generation. I just wanted to be outside, running and kicking ball. Tracing those dotted letters on the paper was like dragging fingernails across the chalkboard.  I could only think about what else I could be doing and how this task was getting in the way of it. I would render a challenge to my friends to race each other to be done. It was subtle competition, but would suffice enough to get through the painful, mundane task. All for naught as recess would never come earlier.

The struggle continued…

Fast forward to 7th Grade Science Class.  In this class, the teacher Mrs. Sonotgoingtowriteanymore (AKA Stein), held the Olympics of writing marathons.  My hand, eyes and head hurt, and I grew tired of taking notes to a point of drudgery. She would have us sufferers write notes continually throughout the class EV…ER…Y DAY.  Her approach was to have us write down what was being demonstrated on the board to further solidify the comprehension of the topic.  To me however, it was a lesson in pain.

My lab table partner was Stacey, a good friend and future class president.  We got along and often would talk of weekend plans or the latest of daily school “hot topics” in our social groups. She had perfect penmanship and her wit was humorous.  She was extremely intelligent and when the teacher handed back papers, she often would hide her “A” from me to spare me the conversation of comparison.  After a few months, in a regular day of science class, she loudly rejoiced amid a quiet class that she finally beat me!  

“I beat you done writing!”, she yelled.

That class was startled and onlookers… looked. I had no idea what she was talking about until she pointed to my paper and said she beat me in finishing writing down the notes from the board.  I was astonished and in a haste, I took a look at her notes, and pointed out that her penmanship was suffering. I mentioned that she shouldn’t follow me down this road of illegible handwriting and in an effort to thwart a poor habit, I made her turn back a few pages to show her how her penmanship was progressively getting worse. She obliged and swore not to compromise herself. It was the last time she ever beat me in the note taking race as she relinquished first place back to the rightful owner. My life path would include the title: Terrible handwriter. Sadly, I have notebooks that only I can read. And she has her typography art.  Though she graduated top of our class, she never mastered how to write like a doctor’s prescription like me.

Sadly, I have notebooks that only I can read. 

So why the hurry?  Hindsight 20/20… literally.  When I was four years old, I was prescribed "bottle" glasses after finding out that I was severely far-sighted.  The glasses were so heavy, it hurt my nose and ears having to hold up such heavy weight. What could one child do? Solution: I stopped wearing them after leaving the house.  But without the fine, attractive looking spectacles, it was physically painful to look at something close. It hurt my eyes as the tiny muscles in the eye-lens ran daily focus-marathons. Here we have it, the sole source of the pain of writing was because it physically hurt.  The compromise for disposing of those glasses was to take terrible notes that led up to anxious writing styles. We all make decisions in our lives that we don’t anticipate to endure a lifetime. But I had.

Photo of heavy, thick eyes glasses. Photo courtesy of Imgur: (https://imgur.com/gallery/thick-glasses-Tdq2Yzy)

Why not just fix the handwriting? Because it hurts and I would often steer away from pain. Going with faulty rationale that actually makes things worse before attempting to make them better. This would be detrimental to me. In the instance of my disdain for writing, mixed into the pain of writing was the association of the physical pain in my eyes and eventually my head.  

What to do about it...

 I have since had eye surgery and have perfect vision now, but the damage has already taken place. The eye pain is gone, but the writing habit still festers. 

I have since completed a military career and a few lessons learnt from those years are to: “be comfortable with being uncomfortable” and  “everything is hard until you start doing it”. So, with the pain of writing, the realization is that there is a hidden pleasure in there somewhere as well and I need to overcome the learned behavior.

“Lean into the pain… Nothing lasts forever.” 

This saying, analogous with distance running, shows me that self-improvement comes at the threshold of my comfort zone. By pushing through, I can overcome the writing block caused by bad eyes and overcome the pain of writing. I too can change this residual attitude.

Soon… or how about now, I say, “Writing is enjoyable.”.  

Mark Mulhern finished his first career and has returned to school to obtain a degree in Earth Science.  He is planning on using this as a lifelong endeavor to facilitate sustainability of soil conservation and leverage his affinity towards geologic processes. Mark is an avid outdoors person who recently moved to Minnesota and claims he misses mountains very much.