Seven Days of Eating Left-Handed, After a Pair of Pliers Crushed My Right Thumb

"Let me scoop it for you."

"No, I've got it."

The spoon sat in my left hand like a fish I'd never met. Rice fell on the table before it reached my mouth, and two grains stuck to my shirt cuff.

It was twelve-twenty, and my motorbike repair shop at the mouth of the alley still smelled of engine oil and hot metal. That morning a pair of pliers had crushed my right thumb, and it was wrapped three times in gauze, about the size of a garlic bulb. Aunt Sáu, who sells rice from the stall across the lane, had carried over a plate of rice and braised fish with a bowl of gourd soup, same as every noon, and now she stood there watching me work out how to eat.

I'm not telling you about the hand to complain. I'm telling you because at that table, for the first time in I don't know how long, I saw the spoon travel from plate to mouth. Every stretch of it, like watching a stranger do it.

This post is the seven days I ate left-handed. The thumb has healed, and I still repeated the week to make it a full one, and now I'd like you to try it, no crushed thumb required.

This Isn't About Training Your Left Hand

A word first, to head off the wrong idea. These seven days aren't a way to eat slowly for the sake of a timer, and they aren't meant to make your left hand as good as your right. You don't decide to be slow here. A clumsy hand slows itself down, and you just go along with it.

A few safety notes while we're here. If food is scalding, wait until it cools a little before scooping it with your other hand. Knives, skewers, and chopsticks for slippery food stay with your usual hand. If your hands shake, your joints hurt, or either hand is truly injured, skip this and eat the way you always do.

The First Three Days: Which Way Does the Spoon Go

Day One, Rice on the Table

For someone in my trade, the left hand is the holding hand. It holds the bolt, holds the brake pad, holds the rim steady while the right hand turns. It has never once gone first. Ask it to carry a spoon and it grips too hard, the wrist goes stiff, and it scoops a full spoonful that spills halfway there.

That lunch took nearly half an hour. Aunt Sáu had to run over with a rag twice.

I'd always thought I ate decently. I sat properly at the low table in front of the shop, no television, no habit of holding a phone while I ate. There's a post on this site about eating a meal without picking up your phone, and I read it and figured that was me covered. But that noon I saw it: my hands were empty, and still my head had never once sat down to eat with my mouth. My right hand scooped and lifted by itself, and I never had to give an order. Meanwhile my head went off to the bike that still needed brake pads, the invoice I hadn't sent, the customer coming at three. My right hand is so good it doesn't need me there.

My left hand isn't good. It needs me. That need pulled me back one spoonful at a time, not because I'd resolved to focus, but because if I wandered off, the rice spilled.

Here's how to do the first day. One meal, any meal, no need to watch the clock. Move the spoon to your other hand. Rest the first hand on your thigh, and hold to that, because letting it help even once turns the whole exercise into a game of pushing rice around. You'll know you're doing it right in the two seconds between plate and mouth: while the spoon is still hanging there, your head has no room for anything else. Just two seconds. For the first few days, catching those two seconds is plenty.

Days Two and Three, When the Right Hand Sneaks In

Day two went better. Less rice fell, my wrist loosened, and I started to notice my spoon liked to swing left before turning in to my mouth, a detour past the straight line.

Sơn, the shop's nineteen-year-old apprentice, leaned in the doorway laughing.

"You eat like a little kid."

"You try it."

He shook his head and went back inside. I remember that line, because a few days later he was the one who tried.

On day three I cheated.

Aunt Sáu turned toward her kitchen, and my right hand, the one wrapped three times, slipped out and used its other four fingers to push rice onto the spoon. I ate fast. About ten spoonfuls later I realized I couldn't remember any of them going by, and my head had already wandered back to the bike.

I'd guess plenty of people slip right here, because with a clumsy hand the easy thing is to ask the other one for a little help, then a little more. I had no clever fix. I put the spoon down on the table, pulled my right hand back to my thigh, and waited until my left hand stopped clenching before I scooped again. It cost me a few more minutes and two more spoonfuls of rice.

By the end of day three my hand had stopped dropping rice. My head was another story: it would stay for a few spoonfuls, then leave to go price the next bike, and it still couldn't last a whole meal. How it goes for other people I can't say, only for me. And on a day that's too busy, just do the first spoonful with your other hand, then hand the spoon back to your usual one. One spoonful.

Days Four to Seven, With Someone at the Table

Fine, the left hand is used to it now, so that's that.

On day four I really thought so. The left hand had stopped spilling, and I figured the matter was over. Then on day five I ate dinner with my daughter, and the thing I thought was finished opened onto another part.

My Daughter's Chopsticks

"Vy, hold your chopsticks properly."

"You hold a spoon in your left hand and you're holding it properly?"

"I'm practicing."

"So am I. Since I was three."

I went quiet. She holds her chopsticks with her middle finger pressed over her index, like nobody else I know, and she picked up a piece of tofu in tomato sauce without dropping a crumb.

That night I asked myself: the way I've held chopsticks for forty-some years, who taught me? I don't know. The next day I asked my mother, and she laughed and said she didn't remember. So to this day I still don't know. All I know is that everyone's grip got into their hand at some moment nobody remembers, and I had just demanded my daughter swap hers for mine, a grip I never chose either. A week of clumsiness didn't make me humble. It only made me see how often I look at other people's hands and want to fix them.

The Rest of the Week

Day four is a rest day: hold the spoon in your usual hand, and only notice which hand is holding it, nothing more. On day five go back to the left hand, and if you're eating with someone, glance at their hands for a moment without saying anything. On day six use your left hand and make the first spoonful as slow as you can manage. On day seven eat as usual, then write three lines.

On day six Aunt Sáu brought the gourd soup still steaming. The bowl was too hot, so I left it alone and waited for it to cool before touching the spoon, and while I waited I smelled the dried shrimp in the broth, a smell I'd been sitting next to for over ten years without once noticing. The first spoonful went so slowly that the wok sizzling in her kitchen and the motorbikes passing in the alley sounded louder than usual. The next day I asked her how long she'd been cooking the soup with dried shrimp. Since she opened the stall, she said. I asked why she'd never told me, and she laughed and said, you never asked.

You know you're doing it right when you can look at the hands of whoever's sitting with you and there's no correction forming in your head. The first time I looked at someone else's hands, I saw Sơn hold his chopsticks like a pencil, and the lottery-ticket seller who stops by the shop pinch the tips together so tight they almost fused. Everyone had their own way, and nobody dropped a thing. A week later I was correcting my daughter's chopsticks less; she said she hadn't noticed me being any different. I'm not sure where I changed either. On a day that's too busy, just look at your own hand or the hand of whoever's beside you, ten seconds, at any meal.

If You Try and Only Feel Annoyed

"Boss, I feel stupid."

"Stupid how?"

"I keep dropping rice. I don't see anything else except dropping rice."

Sơn tried for exactly one meal, then stopped. I didn't push him, and I don't know why it worked for me and not for him. I can only guess at two things.

The first is that the annoyance crowds out everything else. Rice falls, food sticks to your fingers, and the meal turns into a fight. If so, shrink the job: eat only soft food with a spoon, or do just the first three spoonfuls with your other hand and leave the rest to your usual one.

The second is where you're sitting. In a crowded café, with everyone glancing as they pass, three minutes is enough to feel self-conscious. Change the place: do it at home, at dinner, wherever the fewest people can see.

And if you try both and it still doesn't fit, that's fine. Some people can't stand being clumsy, and some people's hands won't allow it. They can do something else in the same spirit, like chewing slowly, ten times, or washing dishes as meditation, where warm water on your hands is a place to pause.

The following Monday at noon, Aunt Sáu set the plate on the table and asked, "Hand all better, dear?"

"All better."

The spoon lay on the right side of the plate. I looked at it for a moment before I picked it up.

This article was created with AI assistance.