The Palmer Method

The Palmer Method

‘No one appreciates beautiful handwriting anymore,’ I’ve heard several people – usually over 60 – bemoaning today’s preference for keyboarding and block lettering. At the risk of sounding like a Baby Boomer longing for the past, I’m still a lover of cursive handwriting. Also known as script, writing in cursive with pen to paper is a conduit for the senses. Is the pen mightier than the sword? I think so. My first drafts power their way to creation, written in script, before they become editable Word docs.

The Palmer method, developed by Austin Palmer in the late 19th century, employed big swings, loops on the capital B’s and D’s like cloverleafs on a highway, and the healthy tilt toward the right, each letter ending and connecting to the next with an upward swing. I remember learning the Palmer method in Catholic elementary school. Penmanship was a line-item subject on the report card, deserving a grade for the quality of your handwriting. In class, the alphabet cards stared down at us, fastened to the wall above the black board. I stared back, studying those beautiful symbols. A means for me to be exact, neat, perfect. And to get an A! I’d sit mesmerised watching Sr. Francis Xavier write homework assignments on the board, perfection flowing in chalk before my eyes. So, I’d practice slowly, meticulously, with a fine-point fountain pen, crafting the shapely alphabet forms in between the protective borders of the blue-lined paper.

My father must have learned cursive writing the same way. He possessed the most beautiful handwriting, as beautiful as those alphabet letters I studied in school. Dad’s signature might have impressed Mr. Palmer himself. Large and bold. The R in Robert orbiting in a wide ellipse on top; and the lower leg flowing smoothly into the o; and the b tilted just right, with the little tail blending smoothly into the e; and the r in the shape of a v connecting to the final t. In honour of his father, Dad’s signature included the Jr. long after his father had died. Robert Samuels, Jr. The capital S almost like a musical clef and the lowercase letters traveling in waves to the l and the final s that rose up like the tide. But there was so much more to his handwriting than its appearance. Whatever Dad felt, he couldn’t say with his writing. Like many of us, he relied on Hallmark to express the tender feelings in his heart. He once sent me a Valentine with factory-printed words like proud of you, good daughter, always in my heart, things he could never utter. But he signed his card Love, Dad in that artistic handwriting, his expression of love reserved, safe from vulnerability. When I told him how much the card meant to me, he revealed the amount of time he had spent in the store, reading dozens of cards on the rack, until he had found just the right one. It took many years for me to grasp the depth of my father’s love.

As a child, his gruffness at times and especially his remoteness, made me believe he didn’t love me at all. As a young adult, I didn’t recognise his attempts to protect me from my naive flirtations with a world he considered dangerous. When I, at last, matured and took a nuanced look at the man himself, his reticence and his actions, I learned that although it wasn’t my chosen way of being loved, it was the only way he knew how to do it. When I remember his Love, Dad now, I hear his concern, the times he’d say, ‘call me when you get home.’ When I reminisce, his Love, Dad is full of protectiveness, when he said, ‘I wish you weren’t living alone, so you’d have someone to take care of you.’ I even learned to understand his Love, Dad of anger when I was in my early twenties, still living at home, and he refused to speak to me for three days after I’d stayed out all night Friday and came back at 6AM Saturday! As my signature also matured over time, the initial cap L in Lorraine and initial cap S in Samuels began to carry that same cloverleaf pattern with a wide swing, just like Dad’s. Shaping these letters in the Palmer style revealed the confidence I’d developed in the power of my pen. And along with it, my deepening connections to Robert Samuels, Jr.

By Lorraine Rose Samuels. Lori is an essay writer and published poet who teaches English as a Second Language. Her themes include extolling the wonders of nature, the transitions in life we journey through, and the imperfections and beauty of human attachment. Lorraine is currently crafting a book of essays and poetry. She lives in Brewster, NY with her four geriatric cats!