chapter three

Dr. Hannibal Lecter requests the pleasure of my company for dinner.

I took a calligraphy course today. It was a working Saturday for me, so at first I was like, “I’m tired, so three more hours of sitting and paying attention to something isn’t going to work for me”. But the price was very affordable (calligraphy courses are usually expensive), so I went there with my cousin, and I’m so glad that I did.

First of all, it’s relaxing, so relaxing. Second of all, it’s awesome. I had this preconception that if you can’t draw, like I can’t, you won’t be able to reach beautiful penmanship, and I was wrong. This is writing, after all, something basic that every person with the privilege of attending or having attended school learns and uses for their entire life. It’s not drawing, it’s writing - but it’s also an art form, and it felt so creative to practice calligraphy. 

We got to choose four types of script, practicing with pencils at first and then taking up actual calligraphy pens, dipping those wonderful things in ink like in the olden days (you could also use pens that contained ink, so you didn’t have to dip the tips constantly, but I actually found it easier to write with the pens that needed to be dipped in ink; the tips were a bit different). I can now say that I wrote a few sentences in the Carolingian minuscule, which is totally surreal and amazing to me. I even did well, so double yay! I also practiced the Gothic script or blackletter, since the Carolingian minuscule is an ancestor of the blackletter. My favourite (so far) was the German cursive or Kurrent, which reminds me of those letters in Jane Austen movies. Not the easiest script to master, but it felt so satisfying to write like that.

I now have a new hobby to add to my existing ones. All I need is paper, a calligraphy pen and some ink, and I’m good. You can get all of it for a very low price (seriously, there are great calligraphy pens that cost less than a loaf of bread), unless you’re a professional calligraphist; then you might want to consider something more up there.

Anyway…if you want to relax in a way that doesn’t require you to do much, choose calligraphy. Practice fonts are available online, with instructions and tips to best achieve your goal of beautiful penmanship.