I don’t remember when I first learned how to write the letter “a.” All I remember is that one day there it was, holding its own amongst the “e”‘s and the “r”‘s and the “t”‘s. And it may have been in kindergarten, but something tells me it was before then, not because I’ve always been a genius with words or anything, but simply because I recall knowing how to spell “cat” and “rat” prior to that moment. The uppercase version of the letter was easy, a one-rung ladder with converging legs, but the lowercase “a” was a bit trickier to accomplish. It took a flick of the wrist to form that perfect circle, and then a steady hand to carve the slanting line on the right side of that circle. And I’m sure I thought at the time that I was done creating an “a” out of thin air.
I was wrong. When I turned 8 I realized there were other ways to write that lowercase “a” that I hadn’t thought of before. There was the classic version with the line that didn’t slant instead of its leaning brethren. It made the “a” seem more benign, like it was ready to be invited for mid-morning tea and crumpets out on the veranda. But that was nothing compared to the fancy “a” I discovered two years later that consisted of two pieces that were quite unlike the ones that made up the first two I had found. Instead of two parts that were separate, this version of the “a” was an exquisite collection of angles and curves. From the first moment I discovered that this type of “a” existed, I was in love. I had to have it.
But there was one problem; In order to truly learn the new “a” I had to immerse myself in it, which meant working hard to unlearn the old “a” I had known my entire life to that point. On every single school paper I paused before writing an “a” and instead wrote my new, fancier version of the letter. At first it was a tedious process that often took a lot of erasing and re-writing, but after about six weeks of pain and torture, I was victorious. I had finally found a new way to make a letter that I had always thought had nothing new to show me. For the rest of the school year I didn’t even have to pause anymore. It was fluid like water cascading over the falls, and I was quite content with myself.
Until the next school year started. And we learned cursive.
Sam
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