i

Handwriting analysts draw conclusions about their subjects' self-image just by examining the way they form their I's. Embellished cursive I's with lots of curlicues and decoration indicate a pompous writer, or one who feels the need to overcompensate for low self-esteem. The writer of a single-stroke I is likely independent, efficient, and down-to-earth. No self-respecting writer can get lower than a lowercase i, which means low self-esteem. The same goes for an uncapitalized signature. And, even in emails, an uncapitalized greeting signifies disrespect or disregard for the addressee.

Like every other element of graphology, these cues must be taken in the context of other cues and of the setting of the writing itself. Still, for a single letter to bear the weight of such consequential judgments about a personality...

In 7th grade English class with the illustrious Mrs. Morse, we learned The Rules. Always capitalize those I's, names, and salutations. Even on instant messenger, because otherwise you will get into the habit of writing with that horrible jargon and it will ruin your writing 4eva--forever. And from that moment you can give up all hope of ever being respected by anyone. Ever.

About the same time, I was burning through Madeleine L'Engle's tower of writings. I was collecting the material that I needed to form my own identity -- to this day my atomic personality structure contains a lot of L'Engle quotes as bonds and atoms. One of those bond-atoms went like this: "You have to learn the rules before you can break them." Not surprisingly, this put my cocky little 12-year-old self somewhat at odds with Mrs. Morse. (Madeleine L'Engle also went to a British boarding school, where they don't use periods after the title abbreviations. I still run into conflict when I try to leave out my abbreviation punctuation.)

So who dares to break that rule? Who dares to risk their self-respect for such a mundane artistic choice as arbitrary lowercasing?

In the most recent reading for my Theology and Sexuality class, Marvin Ellison quoted a feminist writer named bell hooks. I was immediately flooded with rage, and corrected the typo that made her (very important) name into a couple of insignificant words. When it came up again a few pages later, I remembered the brief section of high school history or English where we talked about some famous feminists, and sheepishly flipped back to erase my correction. bell hooks was christened Gloria Jean Watson and used the pen name bell hooks when she played her part in changing the world. The beauty of that choice is that it does melt into the rhythm and fabric of the writing. "What are those two random nouns doing in the middle of this sentence?" we wonder, and do not realize until later that they are a name. The bell rings and the hooks reel us in, and yet you remain unaware until it's too late. You think you've been reading common knowledge until that point. And far from damning her to disrespect, bell hooks gives a whole other dimension to the point that Gloria Jean Watson made throughout her life. She is beautiful, belle, but the missing e sharpens the edge of the ell.

Edward Estlin Cummings' popular name has become a tribute to his contribution to the reformation of word-ing in the early 20th century. (Why we don't rearrange his now-name to become e. cummings e. I don't know; if it was lowercased in order to reflect his famously unique style, why not take it the extra mile?) Although my friends do not see his influence in my own work, I consider him a great gift to wordsmiths of our time. I have always loved the look of his lack of caps, how every of his books in libraries worldwide has at least one kind of tape on the spine holding it together (and yes, I have looked). Poetry is one place the grammatical rule-breakers of the world can openly rebel, and e.e. cummings was a king in that movement. (Or a comrade?) He played with the very tinker toys of our language, not only grammar, capitalization and punctuation but the words themselves, and sentence structure. This has been a very valuable lesson to me: play. And take that very seriously.

On one hand, I just get lazy. I am particularly unmotivated to capitalize my I's in text messages, and I rarely do so in instant message conversations. It takes a fraction of a second longer to hit the shift key. I don't have time for that!

I recently asked someone why he capitalizes his I's, without fail, even when he doesn't capitalize the first word of his responses or even use punctuation half the time. I don't remember his exact response, but basically he said it was important. It was strange that I asked him, because it comes so automatically.

I am inclined to defend myself.

I am not lazy all the time, and since I apparently spend so much time thinking about this stuff you'd think I might put in a bit more effort to make a point. I remember consciously avoiding capitals in my poetry for a period of time, and that included my i's. At that time it was an exercise; my work then probably resembled e.e. cummings' more than at any other time. Later on it became a statement: yes, I was humble! What of it?

Now? I definitely discriminate. Sometimes within the same poem I am both capital and lowercase. Sometimes I am humble and sometimes self-important. I decide (often subconsciously) what is important for a certain image or statement. Sometimes I must dominate the image as The Subject. Sometimes every element needs equal weight, when the scale must be absolutely balanced. "I" am no more or less important than every other piece of the picture, every other letter in the line. I love the consistency and subtlety of the little i slipping in between the other short stout letters, the little dot floating above the line (even when it's spoken) like a little red balloon. It looks pretty.

On a very basic level, the big I's are much less cute.