An unasked-for learning experience

Every now and then life rears a head that we don’t pay attention to very often. And it reminds us not to take anything for granted.

Take the finger, for example. The index finger of your dominant hand, in particular. How often do you stop to think about all it has to do, and all that goes on inside it, when you straighten it, extend it, and stretch for something? I’ll bet you haven’t done this kind of thinking for a while (if ever).

But I have. Quite a bit too, for long seconds at a time, thanks to the deep slice that runs along a sizable part of my pointing digit.

It happened when Julius and I were on our way to a mountain ramble, and we stopped, as is our custom, to fill our water bottles from the mountain spring gushing out of the hillside next to the Fiastra road. Julius pointed out the icy patch to me, but my aging memory discarded the info when I turned to cross the road with a full bottle. The result was predictable – no traction on the shoe, out it flew from under me, down I went, unfortunately on the bottle side, and its glass shattered as I hit the tar.

It sounds cliché perhaps, but as I went down, it was almost in slow motion, and I thought ”Shit! I can’t stop this. I’m going to cut myself.” This was true.

It was a nice clean cut, deep, and it hurt like hell. So did the butt of my hand, which had a chunk of skin hanging from it, having taken the tail-end of the fall-and-break. But enough of the graphics. The finger needed 11 stitches, the base of the hand 5.

As a result, my left hand was called into immediate action to perform all sorts of tasks that it used to witness indolently as the right hand toiled. Like eating pasta, for instance, a vital life-sustaining task in Italy. Necessity being the mother of invention that it is, the left hand learned quickly, but I think it realized that it would never achieve the dexterity and proficiency of the right, backed as it is by long-established and powerful synapses in high places. Its respect for the right hand’s efforts has been further bolstered at tooth-brushing time, the morning’s dressing ritual, and during various other sundry (and basic) functions.

But it’s the stretching that’s the killer. I’ve learned to try and use my left hand when I can remember, or to keep my index finger bent when I have to use my right. But I forget, several times a time. And I pay. A sort of burning, buzzing, searing pain of a thing surges through my finger, and I’m compelled to stop what I’m doing – instantly. It happens when I’m doing something as simple as tossing a shirt over the chair, or putting a glass down on the floor next to the couch. These are not strenuous activities requiring great intellectual exercise. At least they didn’t use to be. Now unfortunately they are, and my life has become cluttered, with all sorts of considerations that were hitherto automaton tasks.

Ah well, everything’s a learning experience, right? There’s much to be thankful for. Like the fact that I didn’t fall face first on the road. Or that a car wasn’t coming along at the moment I fell.

And after the initial shock and resentment, my left hand has rather relished its new role, having its capabilities flexed and extended. I almost sense its disappointment as the finger begins its slow healing process.