There's an I in Irony
One of my exes called to wish me luck this Friday, and in her message she expressed disbelief and sorrow over my hand, telling me that she's always thought my hands so beautiful. Being a Sadge, I needed the ego stroke, but I also needed a chance to let the sorrow in, to greet the grief I already feel at knowing part of me will be altered (note I didn't say marred-- not that I didn't think it).
I work in a profession that has required me to be ambidextrous for the sake of skill and survival. We all have to use our non-dominant hand with great regularity-- it often comes in for the assist on any given task. So taking the time to ponder everything I do, to see how I am using the left hand, has only heightened my sense of reliance on it. The thought of spending any amount of time without it is, well, scary to me. It's also a bit depressing.
I already have a large scar on my body. It's a source of sorrow, no matter how hard I've worked to love it. I live with it. I know it. It holds history, a story, a time I'd rather forget but can't. I don't want this new scar because I don't want this interlude. I thought I'd already learned the value of life, the value of my body, my physical abilities. I thought I'd done my painful growing and the tests were over.
But I hadn't. There's still more to learn
posted by Stine @ 12:58 PM
1 comments
1 Comments:
((((((((((Stiney)))))))))) I am so sorry to have been absent from your blog and your process during the weeks leading to your hand surgery. Having just read this today (7/1), I wanted to tell you a little story about dominant and non-dominant hands. As a drum teacher, I am challenged by my Tuesday class which is half left handed students and half right handed students. When I'm calling out hand patterns in the heat of the moment, if I were only dealing with righties, I'd say right, right left right, etc. But it's not fair to make the lefties turn it all backwards in their minds where right=left and vice versa.
Carolyn Brandy, my teacher posited "strong" and "weak" hand. But I don't like that and neither does she as it sends a negative message to the non-dom hand.
So (of course) one of my lefties came up with the terminology....understand that one syllable is paramount; a two syllable word would wreck the flow; one syllable=one beat....so brilliant student said, "Hand A and Hand B."
It was brilliant because it didn't make one hand more valuable or smarter than the other. A comes first as does a dominant hand (usually).
Anyway, we all thought it was brilliant and I want to make her a plaque or something.
and one other thing: I don't think the tests are ever over. It's sort of like the zen master telling his student to clean the toaster oven. She takes it home and spends all week cleaning it to magnificence and brings it back the next week, expecting praise. Instead, when she asks the master what task should she embark upon this week, he tells her to clean the toaster oven. She says, "but I've already cleaned it. I spent all week cleaning it!" But since that is task she is set to, she takes the toaster oven home and in cleaning it again, finds pieces of grit and grease that she missed. (you get my point here, I'm sure.)
So there.
xo
Maddy
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