Shake It Up Baby!

OK, so my hands shake a little. I wish I could blame it on easing into year 73, but it has been with me for as long as I can remember. Never thought about it. The only time it had any impact on my life was in my years doing theater and I had to do some makeup around my eyes. I don’t know how women do that! I had to go with a two-handed grip, right hand on the brush, left holding the right steady, and I still worried about poking my eye out! Then I went up to New York in 1990 to do a spot on Good Morning, America! when Taming the Wild Tube came out, and somebody else did my makeup!! Whoa, was that cool!

But unfortunately there were several other areas in my life when the two-handed option didn’t work, and most had to do with my forays into the field of music. I will not bore you with the painful details of each, but briefly:

Piano. Fueled no doubt by my mother’s ability to sight read on the instrument. My buddy Dan and I drove our piano teacher, poor Mrs. Stupp to distraction. Our piano music kept blowing out of our bike baskets when we left our lessons to ride over to the Milkstore to get milkshakes. Remember this was late 1950s, no fancy “saddlebags,” just wire baskets. And how could you practice without music? Our lack of progress amazed one and all.

Guitar. Fast forward to high school and the age of folk music and Hootenanny. I believe I mastered Michael Row the Boat Ashore and Greensleeves. Three chords, strumming, no picking.

Saxophone. Many years passed between my guitar gathering dust in one closet or another and my fling with the saxophone. I had finished my PhD and secured my first tenure-track teaching position in the wilds of Stevens Point, Wisconsin. Brrrrrrr. Another story for another time. Anyhow I figured I had “come of age,” by some measure or another and it was time to free my inner Eddie Harris. So I rented a saxophone - the only fleeting bit of sanity in this sad saga - and signed up for lessons. My first lesson consisted mainly of how to hold the sax, drooling on the reed, and stuff like that. No actual blowing into the instrument. I headed home with a throbbing version of “Get on Down” playing in my head. I arrived home. Set up the music stand, figured the reed was still soggy enough, and held the sax as instructed and -- blew into the instrument. I believe the moment is no longer listed as a cold case by the Stevens Point PD, as no evidence was ever recovered supporting the neighbor’s contention that someone or something had been terribly dismembered that day in my apartment. I gazed sadly at my shiny toy. Gently put it back in its case, and drove to the music store, returned the sax, and reclaimed the unused balance of my rental fee.

It was then that I realized that the major problem stemmed from the fact, in addition to my minor shakes, my right hand rarely had any idea what my left hand was doing, and vice-versa. Armed with that insight I have managed to avoid activities that required any sort of extended dual-handed consciousness.  I did briefly master three-ball juggling in a college production of The Madwoman of Chaillot.  I think it was fear of failure that made that possible.

But a new issue has surfaced - and it is completely my fault. I have shared a number of my drawings with you here on the Wall. But I always tried to post a picture of the whole image as completed, or nearly so. That masks the current issue. Below is pic of a portion of the image I am currently working on. As you can see I have committed myself to adding color to portions of the image, dots, little squares, etc., that are a millimeter or so in diameter. OK, OK. I am resigned to the time this adds to completing the image, but I still am amazed at the effort it takes to put color in those tiny spots.

The solution is as much mental as it is physical. Physically I go back to the two-handed grip. Mentally I send myself back to the costuming class that I took as a Theater major at Kalamazoo College, lo’ these 50 years ago. We had to design and construct a costume. I think I made a shirt of some type. Anyhow you had to sew seams. To keep the seams straight, I remember concentrating on watching the needle of the sewing machine go up and down. So now, when adding color to these tiny spots, I watch the pen in my hand. Slowly, carefully, up and down. Dot. Dot. Dot. Color. Color. Change pen. Dot. Dot. Dot. Move to another place on the drawing. Create design. Yikes! More tiny little spaces.

Why do I do this to myself?!!  Hush. Quiet. Think like a sewing machine. Dot. Dot. Dot.