blog is dead!: this time, left-handed

there has been an amazing symmetry in my life, especially the past five years. i've had the opportunity to revisit issues, people, and places that have been waiting for me during that time---very well-preserved, indeed...a time capsule...an open book with open-ended chapters, to which i now get the chance to write the conclusions and codas...hopefully with a steadier, more mature and robust hand!

this second time around, i'm having to live left-handedly, actually and metaphorically---more true to my real nature. i'm even [re]learning how to play the framedrum lefty...i'm pursuing a relationship...left-handedly! a new career: ditto! if i attempt to re-learn guitar...ditto, ditto...

i've heard it said, perhaps in an unfounded, anectdotal way, that naturally left-handed children develop problems, including stuttering, when using their right hand dominantly [by force or by choice], all of which clear up when left-dominance is reestablished. i'm finding myself clearing up my metaphorical stutterings at 39 yrs. old. one could call my focal dystonia a stutter of movement...

luckily i was never forced by my parents or the church! in fact, the gross, inherited persecution of left-handed people by the catholic church and the society based on it is due to a misunderstanding of the latin word for 'left', which is 'sinister'. this was actually explained to me by my brilliant high school latin teacher: our english word 'sinister' does have the roots of its meaning in that same latin word, but for reasons of fashion rather than hand-dominance. since the majority of people are right-dominant and have been, even in roman times, the person wearing a toga needed to have his/her right hand free for acting in the world; so, the other hand [left] was needed to hold up the other end of the sheet. the left arm extended out front with the sheet draped over it created a pocket or 'sinus' in which things could be carried innocently or concealed sinisterly...