Katy GrunenwaldWriting and RhetoricAudio Narrative1/22/15

Erasable

I remember to this day; it was Peter Kania. He received the first pen in Mrs. Gabriels fourth grade homeroom class. No one was surprised. Peter had the prettiest cursive handwriting Id ever seen. Each year in grade school was marked by that one major event everyone knew was coming; in 2nd grade it was 1st Communion, in 5th grade it was the Christmas play, in 7th grade it was Stations of the Cross, and in 4th grade you earned your pen. Everyone had to write in pencil, but when your teacher decided your penmanship was up to this less-erasable level you were rewarded with a single black, erasable pen. It may not sound like much, but at the time it was everything. I rode the bus to school each morning praying today would be the day. I was sure my turn would come soon. Next to get their pen was my best friend Abby. Luckily she wasnt the type to brag because I was already jealous enough. We rode the bus home and I stared at the pen sitting delicately in her hands. I practiced day after day in my little cursive writing book and each day in class I would slide my paper a little closer to the edge of my desk when the teacher walked past in hopes that she would notice my neat penmanship. Ive always been one of those people who went back after class and rewrote my notes from that day if I felt like they were messy; erasing and rewriting over and over until it looked aesthetically pleasing. I guess you could call me a perfectionist, but Ive always been intrigued by handwriting. Something about the personality of each different persons own handwriting amazes me. We are all taught to write in just about the same way, shown the same images of what an A should look like, yet each person develops their own style and quirks. My best friend Natalie has the neatest, most perfect print of anyone I know. Sophomore year in Modern World class our teacher, Mr. Corrigan, would stare in amazement and comment on it every time he passed her desk. I didnt know how she did it; her writing was so constant, no stray lines or curves ys. My dad is a doctor. He has that typical doctor handwriting thats nearly impossible to read, maybe because hes always in a rush. My mom on the other hand as pretty average handwriting, but I could pick it out of 100 others. Thats how I figured out Santa wasnt real. She would try to write with her left hand she told me, but I could still tell it was her signing the presents under the tree. A couple times I tried to manipulate my own handwriting to look a certain way. I noticed that one of my friends wrote fours differently than I did and I thought hers looked cooler. I forced myself to write them like her, with the one pointed top, instead of my boring little picket-fence fours. Another time I forced myself to write twos differently, the curvy ones instead of the ones that look more or less like Zs. Again with lowercase as, the ones with the curvy hook at the stop were obviously superior and way fancier. Eventually I wondered why I bothered. Why did it matter? I spent more time thinking about how I was writing instead of what I was writing. It can be so easy to get caught up in how great everyone elses handwriting is and forget to see the beauty in the imperfection of your own. It had been a week or two since any pens had been given out, so my mind was filled with various other monumental fourth grade dilemmas, but when Mrs. Gabriel pulled out three black pens I got that unmistakable shaky feeling in my chest. I tried to prepare myself for disappointment in case my name wasnt written on one of the slips of paper tied around the pens, but I couldnt quiet my overwhelming hopefulness. When she called my name I nearly leapt from my chair and ran across the room. My classmates facial expressions remained apathetic but in my mind there were fireworks.

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