CALL ME AMBIDEXTROUS

It’s that time of year again. You know, the time that follows the most wonderful time of the year. A time I find my mind wandering aimlessly, searching for something meaningful, something interesting, something to write about. It’s that time of year when admittedly, I tend to experience a first class, bona fide case of writer’s block! In an effort to thwart this condition, I keep a small memo book with me at all times, allowing me to jot down thoughts or moments of brilliance should they choose some randomly inopportune moment to pop into my head. Brilliance however, has not really been the operative word of late.

Incoherent is more like it.

There is a tree in our backyard that is currently growing some type of red berries, but I have to crane my neck to see it.

That’s a perfect example right there, yet this very thought consumes me. Living at my new address for a little over three years now, one would think that I might have noticed this flora anomaly before. I can feel my neck getting stiff as I type, while simultaneously trying to gaze upon this vision of not quite beauty.

It’s really quite a sight.

No, not the tree.

Me.

Typing without looking at the screen.

Yet, isn’t that the way normal people do it anyway?

Not me.

I can’t type.

I love to write, have always loved to write, however I have never taken a typing lesson in my life. Why start now? I get by fine using only the index fingers of both hands…AT THE SAME TIME! I mean call me ambidextrous! Where would I be without the undo “Control Z” function on my PC?

Spending a lot of money on White-Out, that’s where.

Typing handicap aside, I must confess that a good deal of my writing does begin in a standard composition notebook. How’s that for old school? What can I say? I believe in tradition. Unfortunately, those old school values come with a price. You see, transferring my literary works from the written page to the computer is nearly an insurmountable hurdle.

I can’t read my own handwriting.

Neither can anyone else, which renders the aforementioned small memo book I keep by my side at all times relatively useless. In the rare moments that I do turn to the scribble housed within, I wind up scratching my head in complete confusion, wondering what any of it might mean. I don't know if it's in some sort of secret code or a newly developed Me version of shorthand, but I find that I lose more great ideas that way.

A theorist, philosopher, or my long departed grandmother would simply say, "If it's meant to be, it's meant to be."

I beg to differ.

"He's going to be a doctor," she often intoned, obviously referring to the unwritten rule that physicians are notorious for their handwriting.

I'm only realizing now as I type this why that rule is indeed unwritten.

            The first typewriter I owned – a vintage cast iron Royal from several centuries earlier long before the days of the sleek electric versions that had had been readily accessible in my youth – had been a hand me down. Only with the help of two able bodied moving men did it make it to my second floor bedroom where it teetered dangerously atop my already unsteady wooden desk; another antique from some other bygone era, I’m sure.

I come from a long line of hand me downs.

Had I been born, let’s say a century earlier, I would have been writing with a used quill, though I have a feeling that may have been a lot of fun. I can almost hear the sound of my mother’s voice berating me for the third time in nearly as many days having come home from school with ink all over my pants.

“Did you carry that quill in your pocket again? Look at this thing! Half of the feathers are missing. That throws it all off balance, mister. No wonder your handwriting is so atrocious.”

Had early society taken exception to those who were Penmanship challenged, doctors and writers alike would have been cave dwellers, relegated to a shameful life of isolation.

           Hieroglyphics would never have worked for me.

I can’t draw either.

Look at that, my mind has wandered again,

(what are those red berries?)

and I need to get back to writing.

(I wonder if they’re edible).

The flashing cursor upon the blank page speaks to me.

Well…go ahead. Write something, it silently scorns.

I sneer back, cracking my knuckles and flexing the index fingers on both of my hands.

Simultaneously!

I’m ambidextrous I tell you, and yes, it’s really quite a sight.

 Tom M.

January 2020