I wished I were left handed.

I think I was somewhere between the ages of nine and twelve…  probably with fair regularity through that entire period (I must admit, my entire life since;  I have been doing it more and more again of late)…  I would sit and try to write with my left hand.  Back then, I had this sense that I was actually ambidextrous; that the only reason why I used my right was because it was the one that the pencil was always put into.  And, there were definitely days when it came quite naturally.  Perhaps half as often as those when it it was the most foreign thing in the world.

I have spent my life leaning (bent like an old aluminium fence post, to be true) to the right (side, not brain) as the rest of my being has had me tilted to the left (quite literally – my left leg is shorter than my right).  Yet, on those days when the wind that fuels my thought cyclones gusts south, ignorance of that uncharted territory turns me backward to seek direction from some north star.

It is no anomaly that “southpaws” generally develop a hand posture so different from “righties”.  We don’t even refer to them in the same terms.  I’ve never heard anyone called a “north paw”.  Like anything else, the manner of attack is completely dependent on the direction from which it is approached.  “Southpaws” mitigate the fact that they are writing over their words by crooking their wrists rather than coming in straight and holding them up from the page.  Having been deeply conditioned to come from the other side, I cannot seem to convince my left hand to make the same adjustments.  In truth, I use better technical form with my left hand.  I tend to lazily drag the words (and my wrist) across the page with my right.

Something I have found most peculiar, however, is my tendency to crook my right hand when I write for extended periods.  I have often mused that this may be an unconscious manifestation of my desire to write with my left.  Having never put the two quirks together it makes so much more sense that my handwriting changes as well, now that I think about it.

These are not technicalities that one can be conditioned to have.  Or, not.  Our tendencies, habits, behaviours and strategies are all manifestations of our persons.  Our selves.  And, my handwriting is one of the most vivid illustrators of my multi-faceted, randomly presenting, personality.