I was born a righty. My mother was a righty. My father was a righty by force. His early days at school in another country were filled with threats and rulers that stung to tame the suspected devil embedded in his left-handedness. His broken hand surrendered and conjured up a right-handed chicken scratch to stop the pain, secretly doing everything else as his lefty self. His brain and hands eventually adjusted to their respective duties, but the devil still lurked.
As a lefty/righty husband and father, he was aloof, self-absorbed, with little time for wife and family, too busy proving to the world that he cou;d succeed and rise above the foolish talk of left hands and the devil, cloaking his demon in a PhD. Still, a young girl wants her father and the only thing he offered other than judgement to his “always underfoot” free-spirited daughter was books.
When I turned ten, he pulled the shaggy biography of Auguste Rodin from the shelf.
“Here. Read this,” he gruffed.
I frowned at the size of it. “How am I supposed to understand all these pages?”
“Stop being so contrary! Just sit and read, then write down what you think!” he commanded, believing it would confound and occupy me for hours, days, weeks, keeping me out of his thinning hair.
Maybe THIS was a way to be seen as more than a nuisance. I devoured the book, looked up hard words in the Webster and savored those I understood without reference. I took notes and reported back, on paper.
“This is about a great artist who suffers to get his work done. He can’t help himself. That is why he is a great artist.”
Peering over his smudged readers, my father begrudgingly conceded
“Good. Now this,” handing me a weighty novel detailing the Russian revolution. Next,came a long history of the Zulu nation.
On it went, and so did the words I recorded in response to the heady tomes my distant father assigned; book reports for attention and validation. I was doing it to be noticed. Ironically, I was being taught HOW to notice, cultivating my love for the written word, both in print and by my own hand. If clever enough, I could even make a point.
So began my love of reading, but more of writing, reporting on the lives of others and eventually, recording moments in my own life.
In middle school, I wrote “once upon a time” stories, tales of magical places where handsome princes saved damsels in distress and prideful girls fought battles for their rightful share. In high school, poems of romance, some joyful, others sorrowful and wailing. In college, the lines on my yellow pad documented the times that were radically changing before my eyes, stanzas for peace, sonnets for equality.
When she and I were both too young, my mother died, leaving me at 20. I sought solace in mining words of grief written by my shaky hand.
“How can I do this without you? Don’t leave me with just HIM. Come back. I need you.”
Eventually, there was joy. At the birth of each of my three sons, I penned a letter, still stored away.
“I am so happy to meet you. You are a wonder. I can’t wait to see what life will bring to you, to us.”
When my marriage broke, and I asked the page,
“Why am I so afraid of being free? How can relief and worry be rolled into one?”
When a new marriage found me, I wrote to celebrate the second chance,
“I am not above or below you, nor you me. Our sameness is the gift.”
When a threatening illness came, I abandoned my pen, paralyzed by prognosis, pain, and uncertainty, too terrified to put it on the page. Lucky enough to be in a hospital with generous humans who suggested I write my way through it and that they would be there for me if I did, I found a new courage. The words deep within summoned and took a stand, giving life to my new writing heartbeat.
“Why now this? How do I live? Will I live? Is there a lesson in it?”
I joined forces with others detoured by the kaleidoscope of unwanted news, a communion that reminded me of the healing writing can bring.
There is not much I can think of for which I can thank the lefty/righty devil that hid in my father, but there is this. I was born a righty, and there is no such devil in me, leaving me open to see the one thing his devil did have to offer: words on a page materializing like magic, telling stories, memorializing, celebrating, grieving, proclaiming, healing, and the gift of writing them all down.