All that’s Left

They are a particular lot, lefties. This past summer, we had seven sales in a row to lefties. After the fifth one, I hesitated to even give the customer the pen that would end the streak. After the seventh person reached for the pen with their left hand, I laughed and said, that is a national record. Someone said, how do you know ? And I  said, because I am a lefty too.

Every lefty has stories of people in their lives — mother, fathers, grandparents, instructors, teachers, nuns — urging or insisting or declaring that they should tie up that left hand and learn to use their right. The very style of the lefty, crooked about the piece of paper with their pen, was considered awkward at best and unattractive. Young lefty women drew particular attention, as if the lefty course was a stigmata to their appearance and even future prospects.

They taught us spelling in grade school. Some of the kids were very good at it — it was where the phrase “smarty pants” came from. I was not very good, until I discovered that if I spelled the word backward, as well as forward, I would have it perfectly. All in my own head. Intelligent became tnegilletni, forward and backward and seeing it both ways was much more foolproof. 

I would amuse myself that Hawaii became a version of Iowa, so to speak, Iiawah. And off went my brain, doing every single word I had, forward and backward, drawrof and drawkcab. What a thrill it was to meet palindromes, to not feel like a last unicorn if there were people who could spin out, Able was I ere I saw Elba. Left to right, right to left, all manner of new sounds and travel. Soon enough I would be in French class, and have an entirely new universe of words to learn to spell in both directions, and sound out in both directions.

I never told anyone, of course. It did not seem a healthy pronouncement and my brain seemed perfectly happy filling its idle, down time with such reviews of so many words, so many phrases. And I could spell perfectly. 

In college, there were cognition tests that often had questions that would hinge on words spelled in both directions. I was very wary, on alert, that its obviousness to me might be a trap. Being a lefty was always slightly awkward. There I was hooked about my pen or pencil while others wrote in their straight-forward right hand. Gradually I found a style that was almost elegant and pens that would not smear as I moved along the page.

Twenty years ago, in the shop, the wonderful Marion Weiss came in to buy some books. She and her partner Michael Manfredi, from WeissManfredi Architects in NYC, had just designed the Seattle Sculpture Park, a lovely swath of field and trail and sculpture and view, just north of the Pike Market.

We were talking when Marion signed her receipt with her left hand. I said, with humor, do you also spell words backward? She looked, and paused and smiled and said, let me have a piece of paper.  And wrote a full page letter to me, backward. I think we were both surprised.

It turns out, of course, that every lefty, consciously or not, has a link, left to right, right to left, forward and backward. Almost a rhythm of passage, a sway to each direction. A left comes from the left and goes to the right, where 90% of the world is already coming from. It is only human to want to appear somewhat regular, at least in small part.

I now will ask a lefty, do you by any chance spell words backward and forward, and often they do, and often they will be surprised by the question. Some do not spell words in both directions, but may see musical scores in a forward/backward rhythm. Or they may read patterns or sequence — in art, or textile, or graphics, or structure, or such — from left to right, right to left. A relation to order, the perception of direction.

Interestingly, left handed architects tend to perceive or favor sequence differently, than their righthanded compatriots. Michelangelo, Da Vinci, the artist M.C. Escher, Tesla are sited as lefties, as are Koolhaas, Gehry, Hadid, Ingels, Zumthor. But that is a different matter, of many factors.

What is clear is that the lefty comes in from the left, consciously, happily, intently or not. Sometimes shyly, sometimes boldly, sometimes unknowingly.