Sinistrality to Dextrality

I started out in life as a lefty. Which was okay until I encountered difficulties in grade school where right-handed habits were emphasized and even required. Learning to write was a struggle but having to write on an asymmetrically designed chair for right-handed people made it doubly hard. A chair with one arm on its right for use as a writing surface probably looked like any other furniture to right-handed people. To a lefty, it's a medieval torture device. For a lefty to effectively use the chair's writing surface he must position his body at an angle of 90 degrees to the chair's arm. Which is only possible if he sits at the edge of the seat and face right-- away from the blackboard, so he could position his writing arm-- his left arm, perpendicularly to the writing surface of the chair. It's excruciatingly uncomfortable.

And so I became right handed.

Well, not exactly. I continued to use my left hand to write when I'm writing on a table or a desk. I also continued to use my left hand for doing things that I'm already proficient at-- like shooting down "santol" and "Kaimito" with my trusty "tirador", "fishing" tadpoles from the sewer canal (-- with a mashed up bougainvillea flower for bait and a bent safety pin for a hook), shooting "katigbe" with my rubber band powered shooter, playing "teks" or "jokaleleng" or "siyato". But, then something happened. I became equally adept at using both hands. I wasn't conscious of it at first until a cousin-- who was, by the way, also left-handed, called my attention to it (We re-build our tree house every school break and he noticed that I no longer needed help to hammer down nails on the right side of the tree trunk). Apparently, I was unconsciously using one hand or the other for different tasks (I was confused even as a kid). But, after having been made aware of it I consciously shifted from one to the other. Before long I wasn't just a cross-dominant or mixed-handed-- a motor skill manifestation where one favors one hand for some tasks and the other hand for others (--writing with the left hand but shooting a basketball with the right). I wasn't left-handed or right-handed anymore. I was both.

For a time, this ambidexterity made me a curiosity in grade school. Because I have a natural talent for drawing I was usually asked to draw up a welcome sign on a big blackboard every time a guest-- a Bishop, the Cardinal or the Arch Bishop, would come visiting. Schoolmates would usually gather behind me to watch as I draw with either hand-- usually shifting from left to right and vice-versa at the corners of the board, and sometimes simultaneously using both hands to draw an arch or a crude Fleur-de-lis. For the finale, I would show off my synchronized writing: using both hands to write my name-- my first name with my left hand and my surname with my right hand, at the same time.

Later in life, I would use this motor skill to do simple sleight of hand tricks to impress the girls, to cheat at cards for money and to pick pockets (usually to "borrow" car keys and IDs-- a story I'm reserving for later).

As I grew older and maybe because I was constantly being subjected to right-favoring devices and tools, I used my right hand more and more and my left hand less and less eventually becoming a full time right-hander.

It's a right-handed world after all.