We read brief summaries of Leonardo
Da Vinci’s Codex Leicester under the
actual writings and drawings. He was
left-handed and wrote from left to right.
My left-handed, late wife, who was an
artist, did the same thing — her first
grade teacher slashing through her writ-
ing with a red marker. Years later my late
wife shouted at the memory of the former
teacher, “If you had put a mirror up to
it, you would have seen that my writing
was perfect!” I thought about that as I
looked at Da Vinci’s tiny scribblings in a
peculiar Italian which were all about how
water flows. How it flows up and down, in
and out. Apparently, Da Vinci had more
tolerant teachers or they were smart enough
to have mirrors handy to read what he wrote.
Maybe he said, “Mr. Giuseppe, please put
a mirror up to it,” and, again, apparently
they were pretty impressed, because I did-
n’t see any red slashes through his Codex.
Finally, after all that reading about water,
I had to find a bathroom before we moved
on to the Andy Warhol exhibit. I wonder-
ed if Andy had been left-handed, too. It
wasn’t mentioned in the exhibit which was
all about his portraits, although it in-
dicated that his mother doted on him. My
wife is left-handed and she is an artist,
too. I wonder if there is a connection be-
tween being left-handed and being a visual
artist, although, she doesn’t mirror write.
If she did, I would have thought that was
pretty clever and I would have followed her
instruction about the mirror. I, certainly,
wouldn’t have made red slashes through her
writing. I once made red slashes through my
son’s English paper when he was in middle-
school. A few years ago, he reminded me of
it. I had forgotten, but now I feel guilty
about having done that.