The Internet informs me that today (8/13/2017) is International Lefthanders Day.
Why did I pay attention to that? Well, I write primarily with my LEFT hand, and I was predominantly left handed until that became too inconvenient for me. You see, all of my life I have been adaptive. I will seek the path of least resistance, so to speak.... at least that is where my journey began: kindergarten, scissors.... my teacher and my mother decided that I needed to have leftie scissors. Kindergarten, in those days, meant blunt scissors that were not very sharp. I tried the scissors that were in my box of supplies. They were leftie scissors, and what they actually did was to help me tear the paper, but not to cut anything. They were ineffective and pretty much useless. I watched the child next to me, using "normal" scissors, cut the paper with satisfaction, and it was a beautiful thing to behold. And then that child, pleased with the result, put their "normal" scissors down. I picked those "normal" scissors up and, using them with my right hand, cut my paper and was pleased with the result. So began my journey.
It was like a superpower to me. Yes I was left-handed, but I was becoming more by taking on all tasks by trying the right hand method as well. Ambidextrous is my superpower.
I will digress, briefly, to a day prior to my schooling, when my father, with the best of intentions, showed me that I was different. We were eating dinner. I was eating with a spoon; dipping the spoon into the bowl with my left hand, my father stopping me -changing the spoon to my right hand; I put the spoon into my mouth with my right hand, and took the spoon out of my mouth with my left hand -plunging it back into the bowl. We repeated the process a couple of times... left, right, left... I found it funny at first, but after the third or fourth time I was getting annoyed. I mean I was a little kid, maybe 3 years old.... My mother had observed the interaction in silence, but after we repeated the exact same process a few times Mom said to Dad: "leave her alone. At least she's eating." And that was the end of that.
At some later time in my life I do remember my Dad saying that, when he was in school the nun tied his left arm down, forcing him to use his right hand. My Dad went to Catholic grade school in the early 1900s. In that era, left handedness was considered evil and wrong. The nun was fighting the devil himself, who was possessing my father and making him left handed. It had to be stopped! Wikipedia article regarding "Bias_against_left-handed_people"
After my experiment with the scissors I rejected items that were labeled "leftie", and thereafter observed what others did and followed suit. Do not take this to mean that I am a follower, because I reject that also. Although in pondering this now, it may have been my one attempt to fit in and feel included. Nonetheless I was not about to go through life bemoaning my left handedness and whining about how it's a right handed world.
At around age 7 or 8 I made my first effort at learning to write with my right hand. It was a noble idea, but I was not disciplined enough to follow through with it at that time. Later in life, however, I was faced with a long day of work, but little activity going on. Basically I was waiting 40 minutes to work for 20 minutes. I read USA Today. All of USA Today, even the business and sports sections. I did ALL of the puzzles in USA Today: sudoku, crossword, word round up, up and down words, and fill in the blank. I had nothing left to occupy my time. I wrote out my family tree, from grandparents to first cousins, and the first cousins spouses and children as I was able to remember,...both sides of my family --filling both sides of a sheet of paper completely. This took me the morning.... and I still had the afternoon ahead of me,..another 4 hours!
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That was when I started printing with my right hand, that day: "a a a, b b b", and so on, just like back in kindergarten. When I finished the alphabet I started over again. I filled pages with the printed alphabet until I considered my right handed printing legible. In the years since I have not practiced, but I am still able to print with my right hand, and it is fairly legible, if a slow process. Only once I had achieved this feat of printing with my right hand did I call myself ambidextrous.
So, AMBIDEXTROUS is my Super Power. What's yours?
Although being ambidextrous sometimes means that a person is a synesthete, I do not believe this applies to me.
I googled it and could not find an "International Ambidextrous Day" --who cares!
Also, I got far enough into another article to learn that Albert Einstein was ambidextrous.
I do remember my mother thinking that I would crochet left handed. She even went the trouble of finding an instructional booklet for left handed crocheting. At age 15 I had none of that. I watched my mother and my Aunt Helen (who was a prolific crochet-er, turning out thousands of crocheted items for her many grandchildren and others)..... they were right handed. I watched them, I picked up the yarn and a crochet hook and have never had any problem with it, but I am totally unable to comprehend left handed crocheting.
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