My fingers have big knuckles, and they’ve always had big
knuckles. Tracings of my childhood hands
revealed bumps where my friends had little arcs. The third finger of my right
hand has developed a particular characteristic. It takes a slight jog to the
right at the first interphalangeal joint, the joint that most people use to
knock on doors. It has done this for years, but only recently did I realize the
true origin of this pattern: writing.
I grew up in the pre-computer age, the time when we took
notes and wrote assignments with pens, pencils, and papers. Everything was done
that way, from book reports to math problems to short essays. Longer papers
were cranked out on typewriters, but usually from a draft written on yellow
legal paper. We also wrote personal letters in what we called long hand, and we
addressed Christmas cards the same way, not with computer labels. I don’t know how my third finger would be shaped if I had
grown up with computers doing most of my writing. I do know that a writing
implement fits perfectly in the crook that exists there now.
As a piano
teacher, I have a pencil in my hand most of my teaching hours, at the ready to
mark errors or suggestions. I trade the pencil out for a pen when I write down
the week’s assignment in a practice book. I've been known to demonstrate simple piano patterns with one of
these implements still in my hand, a minor gymnastic feat.