When writing just doesn’t feel right

My hand cramps in awkward and uncomfortable ways as I try to will it into copying the neat patterns in my head. Sigh. It’s so simple, I think, you just need to copy what my right hand does. An involuntary spasm scrawls my “y” across two lines in an unhealthy and spontaneous way. My left hand refuses to comply with my wishes as it awkwardly clutches a pen.

If I thought that my handwriting was ugly or slow when I wrote with my right hand then I was bluntly disillusioned by my little experiment. Turns out it’s not that easy to be ambidextrous… I’ve set aside this time, though, and I won’t give up. I keep writing and writing, some words clearly illegible, looking something closer to Arabic than the English that it’s meant to be. I get an sms on my phone and, staying with the spirit of my experiment, I reply to it with my left hand; I discover that pressing buttons is much simpler than manoeuvring a pen.

I can handle the ugliness, but free writing is surely supposed to be rapid, flowing, unceasing. My attempts are halting and painfully slow, ensuring that I focus carefully on the words I write. My impatience is accompanied by a strange sense of endurance as I force myself to keep my pen scratching across the page. It’s a strange feeling to be so aware of my writing. Now I must pay attention to every loop and line as it’s drawn jerkily across the page. I feel like a child re-learning how to create familiar shapes in unfamiliar ways, learning something new.