The Other Hand

Today

My sister Beatrice is recovering from a series of seizures which occurred about ten days ago. Unfortunately she also suffered some "collateral" damage during one seizure when she smashed and dislocated her shoulder. She now has a shiny new titanium one but has invasive surgery to cope with as well.

It's her right shoulder which makes everything so much more difficult. In fact, often the first thing people ask when commiserating on an injured hand or arm is "Is it your right one?"

My right shoulder is in trouble too; probably from a frenzied bout of picture framing a week or so ago. It's extraordinary just how much we rely on our handed-ness to do the simplest things. I found just swilling out the bath this morning quite awkward and had to plan how I was going to carry out this otherwise instinctive set of movements.

In My Day

I believe that our handed-ness is innate so we simply don't remember how we became used to one hand being the leader, so to speak. This dependency goes deeper than mere habit: interference can cause deep damage. Paul's Auntie Joyce was left-handed at a time when this was seen as the mark of the Devil. So it was beaten out of her, changing her from a bright little chatterbox into a stammering and confused individual.

Just how handed-ness links into the brain is shown by this little story:

When I was married, back in 1971, I naturally changed my name from Dixon to Barrett. I adapted immediately to this and never once made an error when signing cheques, documents and letters.

I think it was in 1973 or so, when I was working in the computer pay section of the Inland Revenue. A group of us was chatting over our coffee and someone was bragging about their ability to use either hand seamlessly. I admitted that I was strongly right-handed, to the extent that my right hand is noticeably larger than the left. My colleague signed his name equally well with each hand, then proffered the paper to me and invited me to write my usual signature with my left hand.

With a grandiose sweep and without a moment's hesitation my left hand wrote "Julia Dixon", a name which my right hand had abandoned two years previously. I stared at this name, feeling rather strange as though something deep within me had been disturbed. Clearly the two sides of my brain were operating in quite separate ways and this revelation was quite upsetting to my equilibrium.

Anyway, I've told Beatrice that this is a golden opportunity for her to get on the with the next set of Mamma's diaries which is hands-free, using voice recognition software.