Mirrored Worlds

I am a Creative. I have been from the earliest times, beginning with fingerpainting with unusual substances I could get my hands into, then playdough my mom used to make any color just for me. On to crayons and paint and many other things my father the high school art instructor would introduce me to, until I hit a roadblock.

First grade. Seems like the teacher didn't like left handed people. My paper when I would write would be in a direction she didn't want it to be. I had to adapt to making it look like I was writing like all the right handed students, having my paper tilted the way theirs was and acting like I was reading over my work so she wouldn't see me using. My. Left. Hand.

She wouldn't let me cut anything out like the other students did, let alone try to give me a pair of red handled left handed scissors (if the class happened to have a pair that were extremely rare back then in the very early 60's) so I could at least try to be like the others.

One day, we were going to color and cut out Abe Lincoln's log cabin. How exciting! I wanted to do this ever so much but knew if I said I was left handed, I wouldn't be allowed to. So I learned how to lie. She always asked who was right handed when she passed out the scissors, so this time I raised my hand when the question was asked after we colored our mimeographed log cabin.

Success! I had a pair of scissors in my hand. I actually liked the right handed scissors as I had learned how to use them by squeezing differently when I cut with them. I quickly but carefully cut my log cabin out by holding it under my desk, always looking to see if she was watching or coming near. Somehow, magically, I was able to complete it without her thinking about my being left handed! When she came around to collect our little log cabins, mine was the first one she put up, saying it was the best one done in the class!

So this began my world of being different, of not saying when things would be different (but possible) when I do things. Creative ways of being creative was my world now. So many things I would do in a backwards way yet they would come out correct. Parties and punch ladles, winding up a watch (when one used to have to wind them up!) and even learning how to knit, and thinking I had it all wrong, only to throw it down and have it land on what I thought was the wrong side and in actuality it was the right side! These things helped me realize there is more than one way to do anything, and if I didn't give up, I could succeed. I would run whatever project I would be creating through my mind, as though I were really doing it, over and over, doing something different if I had seen an outcome I didn't like, until I found one I did, and then I just made it happen like the last vision in my brain had shown me.

Ever so grateful my parents let me be creative without limitations at home, being able to draw, paint, and sew whatever I wanted to if I could earn the funds to support my habit, I flourished. I was in a world of colors and textures and I could coax them into any sort of thing I would imagine! How far I had come from being told that left handed people were not able to use scissors.

Now as an adult, with a degree in special education, I can understand why it might have seemed unusual for a right handed teacher in the early 60's to deal with a left handed student. It was not out of the ordinary for everything to conform. To teach someone that has to think differently from the rest of the class was not happening then. For a left handed person to form letters, they are usually pulling the pencil when a right handed person is pushing the pencil and vice versa. Try it and see. Our world is similar yet mirrored. So many things we southpaws adapt to, right down to the point we wouldn't be able to use a left handed version of some things if available.

I can't conform. I have to adapt. I chose to move on to a world where I could be creative. Less paperwork. A sea of colors and textures and not a typical nine to five job. And where I get to use scissors all the time.

I am now a seamstress in the film industry, and I am not sure I could use a sewing machine that is set up for a southpaw. The thought has crossed my mind a few times, but I would take forever to get used to the controls being where they would be easier to use for me from the way I have had to learn to adapt. The same for my professional gravity fed steam iron. Oh, if only the steam button was placed for a left hand thumb! But I have adapted.

But scissors. Oh glorious left handed scissors! I love to have my lefty scissors to hand over to someone that is unsuspecting and right handed. They put their right hand into the finger holes and feel how odd it feels! I enlighten one more person into my world of mirrors. The pain of adaptation of dressmaker shears on the wrong hand. Not to worry, I hand them a pair of right handed scissors because I use them just as much, with no problem.

Just as long as they use the paper scissors for paper, and the fabric scissors for fabric, they are safe for the day. Otherwise they have choice of execution by firing squad, guillotine, or lethal injection.

I have an entire box of scissors. Some are left handed, some are not. Some need sharpening or are for paper these days, some are kept pristine for fabric. I always feel like a kid on the first day of school when I open a package to use a new pair of scissors. And the old but good friends get a ribbon tied to them to denote whether they are used for paper or fabric, and I guard them with my life. I even have kitchen scissors that I chop up my salad for lunch every day.

Scissors are a part of my creative life. I am so glad my six year old self fought to use them no matter what!