I’m a leftie—that means I’m schooled in adapting. From elementary-school desks designed to support right arms for writing (I used mine to store extra pencils). To toilet paper dispensers hung to the right of the porcelain throne (I get a torso tone each time I take care of business). To scissors that leave me with hand cramps and ring around the thumb. (I assumed it was the price I paid for creative endeavor.) On the whole, adapting has done me good, and it’s also made me aware of adaptations others make daily that measure as bushels of potatoes to my small leftie spud.
People who
- navigate a world in which most of us rely on verbal communications when their world is silent and they speak with their hands
- find touch scary and invasive in a world of handshakes, hugs, and back slaps
- have romantic feelings toward persons of the same sex in a male/female rom-com loving culture
- don’t fit into a binary understanding of their bodies when those are the only choices on the forms
- negotiate bathroom needs from wheelchairs and walkers
- need, daily, to communicate in a language that feels awkward and foreign on their tongues
- never realize the dream of a driver’s license and must rely on others for transportation
- struggle to read words and letters that morph and swim before their eyes
That’s a lot of adapting. Quite enough adapting. They ought not also have to adapt to being called diseased, a mistake, hell bound, or a slur. They ought not have to adapt by hiding. They ought not have to adapt out of the truth of their souls.
A while back, while cutting some particularly tough material, I decided, “You know what—I’m going to buy myself some left-handed scissors.” So, I did. And I can’t use them. I tear up the paper, can’t stay on the line, throw up my hands in frustration. I’d adapted to using right-handed scissors for so long, that my leftie cutting skills atrophied.
We make art at A Spacious Place, because creating helps us know ourselves better and to know that who we are is good. Creating also hones our ability to adapt to frustration: to reimagine something that went awry. Art never tells us adapt out of our true selves. No one has a right to do that.
Why not, instead, adapt our culture to make it more inclusive? Do the creative, compassionate, human thing?
Also, does anyone know a left-handed scissors tutor? I’m not giving up.
In what ways do you adapt? How might we adapt our culture to make it more accepting and inclusive? Share your thoughts at contact@aspaciousplace.com.
