Along with an old notebook and assorted random crap, my foray into the office closet also turned up a matched set of Cross pens that were given to me by a friend for being in his wedding. Juliette and I usually acquire pens the usual way, from hotel desk sets and in promotional brochures, so these Cross pens were a significant step up from the other writing implements we had lying around the house. Figuring that they were better used than sitting in a box collecting dust, I brought them out to the kitchen and put them in the pen cup that sits on our counter.

A few days later I was getting ready to write some thank-you notes to my grandmothers for the birthday money they sent me, and it occurred to me that it was as good an occasion as any to break out the good pen. And damn me if they weren't a lot nicer to write with than the cheapo ballpoints I usually use. pen was comfortable in my hand, with a nice, solid weight to it, and the ink flowed smoothly, neither puddling nor thinning despite having been sitting unused for nine years. (My goodness, has it really been nine years?)

Of course, the effect was kind of ruined by the chicken-scratch quality of my handwriting.

I practically never write anything by hand these days. Grocery lists, credit card receipts, Post-It reminders, and the occasional greeting card are about it. I suppose I do use paper and pen for calculations and schematic sketches at work, but that hardly counts in my mind. I do all of my longer writing with a keyboard, and these days even my notes are mostly done on my laptop or phone.

My thoughts tend to move pretty quickly, and the fact that I can type at 100 words per minute helps my words keep up with my brain. By contrast, using a pen feels like trying to run in a swimming pool, and often by the time I finish a sentence I've lost the beginning of the next one. I really don't think I'd be able to get anything done if I had to write it all out longhand.

Still, I can't help feeling like we've lost something by moving away from the analog world of handwritten letters. There's something undeniably special about getting a real letter in the mail, even if the only people that ever send me letters anymore are my grandmothers, and occasionally my father-in-law. There's a certain weight to it, some extra connection granted by being able to hold in my hands the same piece of paper that their hands touched.

My grandmother's script feels a little antiquated, I suppose, but it's also both elegant and familiar. I can't see it without seeing her. Seeing the loops and curves of her letters makes me think of her hands, her hair, the smell of her perfume, the feel of her dining table, where she probably sat while she wrote. I don't get that from an email.

My own handwriting is a jumbled and sloppy print. Letters lean this way and that, drifting away from the lines on the page until finally forced back on track, and the ink tends to drag between strokes. It's all over the place, which I guess isn't too far off the mark, considering the mind that produces it. I sometimes wonder if it would still look that way if I hadn't abandoned pens for computers. Most likely it would, and anyway, typing is simply too convenient for me to regret the change. I do wonder, though.

Will my son learn to write neatly? Will he look forward to handwritten notes from his grandparents? Will his children do the same for notes from me? I hope so. And, fortunately, Juliette's printing is much nicer and more legible than mine.