I am a right handed child raised by a left handed mother

I am a right handed child raised by a left handed mother. I can still see her kneeling in front of my tiny white sneakers, long red hair three shades of fire tickling my little girl shins. Her smooth hands shape uncertain loops in starts and fits, struggling to teach a right handed child from a left handed brain. Eventually, she gave up and apologized, from somewhere inside the deep groove of having been made wrong by the world. A compromising double loop method wordlessly encouraged me to find my own way of surviving a lifetime of shoe tying without her. She was always apologizing for her inborn nature. It made me feel a sad in the cave of my heart. It seemed to me miraculous that she did things differently, with such grace and enthusiasm. She was a surprise in motion, not like the other Mom’s.

Learning to write was more complicated.  It involved unresolved trauma that seeped through the unspoken gap of time. Rural Oklahoma public schools in the 50’s had a policy of undoing.  They tried valiantly to force her unnatural hand.  Teachers made her write pages and pages of dots with her right hand while the rest of the class practiced writing sentences.  Time has softened her memories into wry humor, but I can’t imagine how awful it must have been to be forced into a rigid unfamiliar mold at a sensitive time in life. How many times are people made wrong for being of a different mold? How many molds are possible?

She molded me as my first twirling teacher out on the windy Texas plains.  In the 70’s twirling had evolved from the stiff majorette movements of Mom’s teen years, into a gymnastic event with the added complexity of handling a spinning metal wand.  She started me off with simple horizontal and vertical tricks, timed tosses and fundamentals.  Each movement mirrored by each side of the body until the brain gave up its resistance and allowed pure flow.  The left and right are practiced to muscle memory and perfectly timed symmetry, in both speed and direction.  Left hand, then right hand, now dance and smile, all timed to music.  Forget yourself but do it right. There is no room for mistakes or else the thump of a metal spinning vortex will render its enlightenment on the tender body.  It might be windy outside, or snowing, or 100 degrees.  Practice in every condition 100 times with perfection.  Left and right until the mind releases its hold on form into joy. Just course congruent with the magic of centrifugal force. 

She and I practiced this way for hours on end, years on end, until she was the lone beaming smile up in the top of the football stands, lighting up my performance with her pride.  Everything she taught me was unique and beautiful and sorrowful too.  My mind had learned to melt into her mind, understand the inside curves of her thought and the motion drawn there. Then  inverse the patterned forms in the heart’s mirror as my own.  We developed a way of talking that did not need words.  I embodied her beauty, sorrow and red fire.  I became her reflection, something of her but also my own.

Shoe laces tied backwards

Red fire tickling my shins

Twirling, spinning 

Undoing the past

Writing down the joy

At last

Imprinted with the other

Separate not separate

Mirror Mother

Right hand

Left hand 

Heart shines forever