Por Izquierdo (to the left)
The day I turned leftie was not through choice or the want to show off ambidextrous skills, but through desperation. An injury to my right index, the trigger finger, meant I could not longer shoot a gun (even if I wanted to), nor do much else for that matter. Perhaps not as dramatic as Lord Nelson who was to endure the slow and child-like process of learning to write as a leftie after losing his right arm during the battle of Santa Cruz de Tenerife; nonetheless, I milked the disability for all it was worth. And I can tell you it wasn’t worth much.
I suffered in silence copying page after page from Tim Winton’s Dirt Music until I willed my clumsy left hand to draw an ugly amoeba that resembled the letter ‘o’.
I went to Google to find out if this dramatic change will scramble my brain worse than the confused state I lived in as a right-hander. I was encouraged in learning there is no genetic evidence for handedness.
I also found out that only ten percent of the world’s population is a leftie, which means I am now a minority and wondered how long it would be before negative comments appeared on my Facebook page. I ventured on to see if there are benefits to being a southpaw, and apparently there is. Lefties are said to be good at complex reasoning and score higher in creative daydreaming. This was something I could relate to and wondered if I could utilize this newly acquired skill. Perhaps go on to study and get a BA of Daydreaming, though employment opportunities could be limited.
Lefties have a long and somewhat gruesome history. Lifting a glass for a toast with your left hand is believed to deliver a bad omen to all present. Cheers and here’s to your underwear shrinking. By far the most famous leftie was Joan of Arc. In a painting by Bussiere she is clutching her chest with her left hand. Rossetti has her left hand predominantly holding a her sword, Bastien-Lepage has her gesturing, Lynch has her holding a flag, while Matejko in his painting Maid of Orleans has the young peasant girl leading the French army to victory over the English with her left arm raised in victory. The depictions of left-handedness were to convince she really was evil and had it coming when it came to getting tied to a stake and burnt by those leftie hating English.
Lord Nelson, what were you thinking?
Around the 18th and 19th centuries saw hard times for lefties. Usually, upon being discovered as a leftie, it was beaten out of the hapless south hander. It was believed they were evil. Now that I have turned leftie I’m forced to consider the options: daydreaming of ways to dominate the world for evil gain, mwahhahaha.
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