My handwriting is so bad my diary’s keeping secrets from me. It’s so bad I got fired from a detective agency because it wasn’t clear from my notes who was screwing whom. It’s so bad that the U.S. Postal Service returns five Christmas cards to my husband and me every year with “not deliverable” stamped over the address. It’s so bad I might never have married. For our first date, in 1995, Lex Haris walked up and down Mulberry Street and almost gave up on picking me up because he couldn’t read the last digit of the apartment number I had scrawled on a Post-it. For our fifth wedding anniversary, he gave me a typewriter.
My handwriting is so bad that last fall when I sent flowers to our Thanksgiving dinner host, he turned reading the card that accompanied them into a game. Champagne cocktail in hand, he took my engraved Dempsey & Carroll note card around to forty-four guests, who all struggled to sound out my words like first graders reading Moby-Dick. The host had already fed my card through AI. Three times. Through three different translation bots. Gemini came the closest to getting my sentiments right but reported that instead of looking forward to seeing the host’s daughter Dani, I was looking forward to seeing Salvador Dalí.
I’ve heard, “What is this, hieroglyphics?” I’ve heard, “Can you read what you wrote?” I’ve heard, “You write like a serial killer.”
But a serial killer cuts his letters from back issues of Time magazine. Google Jack the Ripper and the Zodiac Killer and you’ll see that they actually had pretty good penmanship. Say what you will about these evil maniacs, at least they cared enough to take the time to send a handwritten note. My crime: I’m murdering what’s already a dying art.
I’ve tried to rehabilitate myself. I took a calligraphy class at the 92nd Street Y but was so intimidated by the inkpots and nibs, I dropped out after two weeks. I bought a kids’ cursive workbook to practice lower-cases and capitals but was so bored I quit at the Gs. Each September, I special-order a Hobonichi planner from Japan for my schedule and to-do lists because it has grid paper to separate each of my block letters.
And still I’ve heard, “What is that, code?” I’ve heard, “Why don’t you use Google Calendar instead?” I’ve heard, “Just send me an email, for God’s sake.”
But I’ll never turn my personal life over to Big Tech, because I love handwriting accoutrements. Accoutrements is Southern Lady Code for specialty stuff. Just as hair bows and Mountain Dew are accoutrements for Toddlers & Tiaras types, and camo tape and scent-free soap are accoutrements for hunters, pens, pencils, pencil sharpeners, pen cases, erasers shaped like pink and purple dinosaurs, vintage just-a-notes, and new-release postage stamps are accoutrements for me. I’m not the only Luddite out there. Taylor Swift has fountain pens, personalized stationery, and a wax-seal kit. In her Eras Tour docuseries, she jokes that the fire department almost had to be called during the weeks it took her to melt that wax to seal the envelopes containing handwritten thank-you notes and bonuses for her entire crew.
And I will tell you right now: Her handwriting isn’t that much better than mine. But like mine, when you see it, you know that it’s hers.
Just as I know the grande dame loop the loops of Mary Ann, my hundred-year-old cousin and pen pal from Madison, Mississippi. The BFF sign-off of my BFF Patti. And the A-plus cursive of my friend in Florida who was given her first—and as far as I know, her only—B in fourth grade for her handwriting and has never forgiven that teacher for bringing her average down a notch. I haven’t either.
Handwriting says more about a person than what’s written on the page.
Mine says, “This lady’s dynamic tripod grip can’t keep up with her brain.”
So why do I continue to write by hand when I’m so bad at it? I guess for the same reason people who make the national anthem sound like a cat in a car ride continue to sing, and people who can’t scramble an egg worth a damn continue to cook. Because we want to be good at it. Or we think we actually are good at it. We love it. It’s our love language whether the people we love appreciate it or not.
Helen Ellis is a Garden & Gun contributing editor and the author of five books, including the national bestseller American Housewife and Southern Lady Code. Raised in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, she lives in New York City with her husband, Lex.
