This issue is brought to you by my right index finger, which punches letters on my phone far quicker than they appear on screen. You see, dear reader, I am awaiting reconstructive surgery on my right hand. My write hand. My draw hand. My wave nonchalantly hand. My wave enthusiastically hand. My hold my boy's hand when he lets me hand.
The short story is torn tendons that need to be stitched together. The longer, inter-generational tome is one of trauma, a dysregulated nervous system, inflammation, autoimmune disease and the limits of a tendon’s stretch.
I am relieved at having no choice but to stop. I've outgrown old patterns of forging ahead no matter what, because no matter what, my body eventually finds an outlet and the cost, as I have now learned, is not sustainable. After all, I have the important matters of hand holding, waving, drawing and writing to get on with.
So I shall rest, pay attention to how I feel, ask for help when I need it, admit I need help when I do, and find ways to be without my dominant hand.
Raptorial Writes
A monthly writing prompt
Join the Flood The Post mass mail action and write a postcard-sized message to your government representatives demanding a permanent ceasefire.
The action involves the coordinated mail out of postcards to politicians on Wednesday 21 February before 3pm.
There’s power in tens (or hundreds) of thousands of postcards arriving in ministerial offices at once:
labour demanded to handle the volume of mail
space commanded by an avalanche of cardstock
concrete evidence in each postcard of a real human/constituent/tax payer behind the message — one who cares enough to have taken the time to put pen to paper, lick and append a stamp, and set forth the cogs in the delivery chain from postbox to truck to distribution centre to the next truck and so on until the final stage where a hi-vis clad postie on a motorbike empties a large postal sack on the doorsteps of Anthony and Penny and Tim and Lisa et al.
Of course there is also power in what the action communicates to other real humans in the delivery chain — those who also vote, participate in the economy and have the power to join the movement if they haven’t already.
Follow the instructions at Flood the Post Australia, and get writing! Don’t forget to share your creation, tagging @floodthepost_aus on Instagram and using hashtag #FloodThePost
Raptorial Bites
A monthly short story book club
This month’s read is Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Island of the Immortals, published in Lightspeed in September 2011.
This selection was inspired by my search for short stories with ‘left hand’ in the title, which made me stumble upon Le Guin’s novel The Left Hand of Darkness. From there I searched for online short stories by the author.