This was something that, apparently, my parents didn't notice. Nor did two public school kindergartens. (We moved from Whittier, CA to La Habra, CA mid-year, but how much writing is done in kindergarten in the first place? A serious question - I don't recall.) Nor did Our Lady of Guadalupe Elementary School (Catholic), La Habra, CA notice at any point during the five years I spent there. By then, when I went back to public school for 6th grade, perhaps it was too late, I don't know. So, to this day, though I would kick a ball with my left foot and always have, I hold a pen in my right hand, but I write as though I were left-handed - my arm hooked in front of me and, subsequently, the back of my hand smearing ink across the page (the reverse imprint of a variety of letters in blue or black ink on my skin). In first grade I clearly remember being mortified at the sloppiness of my work; instead of somebody sorting that out for me, on my own initiative I took a separate piece of clean, white paper and placed it over the first one, giving me a surface on which to rest my hand without destroying my assignment; moving the second, clean sheet carefully from left to right as my sentences moved in that direction, then lifting it up and covering the "working document" again as I moved to the next line, and so on down the page. And nobody noticed. (I have a recollection of being criticized for my sloppy work, but to be honest I can't swear that part is absolutely true; that part could have attached itself to my true memories over the years.)
Whether learning to write incorrectly during my formative years was a simple failure of the educational system in general, or if it had more to do with the notion that the left hand is (religiously) considered the devil's hand and so, you know, why encourage any change, I don't know. There may have been other left-handers in my Catholic grade school but I don't remember them; the first lefty I remember was a blond kid whose last name was Denny in 6th grade at Olita Elementary School, also in La Habra, and noticing that he held his pen in a similar manner to me. And to be clear - I have no recollection of picking up a pen with my left hand and specifically being told, "No, that's wrong." But, to this day, I have people say to me - and some people who have known me for years and years - if they are sitting across from me when I'm writing, so the picture is reversed to them, they'll say to me, "I didn't know you were left-handed." So I deliberately hold up my right hand with the pen and they say something like, "Wait a minute"; and I say something like, "Catholic School". Which is, to be fair, glib - but, for whatever reason (incompetence, the salvation of my soul), it's also a significant portion of the equation.
In any event, I wound up having a random conversation in the Little Red Hen the other night with a woman who was watching me draw from several tables away (because I am, apparently, that fascinating), and at a certain point she couldn't contain herself any longer and approached to see what I was doing, and literally picked up my drawing (the tissue paper was extremely fragile) as she was saying hello to me. She noted how I held my pen and, after spinning her a ten second version of what you've just read, she said, "Well maybe you can get that back if you want, being left-handed." So, of course (inspiration coming from unlikely sources all the time), I immediately stopped work on the bigger project in order to take a brief, left-handed detour toward some familiar ground to see what that was like. Visual documentation of the results is in the post following this one, and I would like to believe that this post would provide at least some context for the title of said piece.
Everybody in, nobody out.
IBL:mm
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Mike, enjoyed your observations, which stimulated my own Thoughts on Handedness.
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When I was a little kid I was busted by an older kid for not knowing right from left. (Also, not knowing how to tie my shoes gave further evidence that I might have been a little dim. Or perhaps neglected.) To remember which hand was which I bestowed a kind of feeling on my left shoulder for orientation, a feeling sort of as if someone had placed their hand on that shoulder. That strategy never failed me. I suspect few people can remember the moment they learned right from left.
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My youngest son is left-handed. Vaguely I proposed to my (now ex-)wife that we encourage him to use his right hand, not wanting him to be disadvantaged in the ways of the world. Being left-handed herself she quickly scoffed and squashed the proposal. He is a natural artist, as seems to be the case with many left-handers, a well-documented tendency, and makes a good living with his talent.
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You mention left-handedness being under the sway of the devil. Thus the word sinister from the word sinistral, of the left. Dextral referring to the right, giving the word dextrous. Certain gastropods have shells that have a sinistral wind but most are dextral.
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I always wanted to believe I was ambidextrous. Some odd bit of vanity on my part because it sounded like a cool thing. But I do believe my brain is wired weird, often indicating the opposite of what I mean. Turn right here, no I mean left. But also giving me sometimes a curious ability to synthesize things in sort of sideways, crabwise way.
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A few years ago, I broke my right hand and for several weeks on the job had to write up orders for fish with my left hand. My boss noted that my left-handed writing was more legible then my right. But that may have been due to a forced deliberateness.
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During that same period I never was able to masturbate happily with my left hand.
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I think left-handers get things that right-handers don’t. That evolutionarily their brains offer up something that makes society and the trait thrive.
Bill - never commented on this. Fantastic: thanks for adding it to the blog...
ReplyDeleteI've just recently realized that I'm left handed - I remember teachers constantly criticizing the angle of my paper, the way I made my "o's" (I start them at the bottom) and my sloppy handwriting. I was in the library a week or two ago- and casually browsed a book on left handedness, and was shocked. Once I started thinking about it, I realized that I do nearly everything except writing and tools with my left hand - I started asking my left handed daughter which hand she uses for various tasks, and discovered that I use the same hand for almost all of them. I also make my "o's" correctly when writing with my left hand.
ReplyDeleteThanks for this comment - would you care to give a name to go along with the post...?
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