There was always something magical about my mother's handwriting. The napkins she'd jot little heartfelt words of encouragement on and tuck away in my lunchbox each day held that flowery free script with the Laverne L's that felt like home. When I was too young to know cursive, I'd stand beside her as she wrote letters and stare in amazement as if the loops and lines coming from her pen were a secret language only adults could translate. I'd often ask her how long it took for her to be able to write that way and she'd smile and tell me that someday I'd write just like her. My best friend in junior high also had a very distinct hand. She'd carefully position a perfect little circle over every i instead of the plain and predictable dot. Her writing, like my mother's, has stayed constant throughout the years. In a world so erratic it comforts me to know that some things will forever be familiar, tucked away in a shoebox scrawled onto a page.