We lefties are the sinister ones, or sinistre. We’re supposed to be more prone to accidents. The Dextrous ones are the right-handers who rule the world. I always look in movies when someone signs something and does it with the left hand.
My father was forced to change to his right hand as a child. As it was for his four children two of us are lefties and two are righties. He would never make us change and I love him for that.
As a kid I adored the gymnast from the 1972 Olympics, Olga Korbut. I immediately started track and gymnastics at my new school. I wasn’t good at either. The day before practice began in another school my senior year I broke my finger playing basketball with the family after dinner, and had to tell the coach her Captain was on limited duty. I was always afraid of doing an aerial cartwheel in my floor routine. Once I broke my finger I was no longer afraid of air and physics. I didn’t want to hurt my hands!
I am a bit ambidextrous. see the end of that word. As a kid I could bat both ways and still cannot use scissors with my left hand, but I’m a leftie with a chef’s knife.
So, in all my gymnast falls I always caught myself from every apparatus. The left side always wins and I always throw myself forward to keep from hitting the back of my head. Last year I went down on the right. Our old hipless dog and I were on 3″ of ice on a County sidewalk at 6:30 in the morning (I was wearing snow boots with great tread) and I saw her going down, all four paws and lifted her up before she fell. Then I fell and had an 8″ bruise on my right hip for six months.
This year, it was a walk in the park late afternoon with my husband and dog and I didn’t even see it coming. I was reaching for his arm with the dog’s leash in the other hand and my heel went out from under me on the very crosswalk I created. I hit knees, left hand, shoulder and right by my left eye and I’ve the first and only black eye I will ever have. I call it Klutz Week. I get them every five years. Cheers from the one-eyed writer. Dee
Cooking with Dee 