On hands

and skills.

Last night, I played pool for the first time.

It was the first time I stood near a pool table and wasn’t breathed on by a man whose only intention was to undress me. It was the first time I didn’t have to grab a billiard ball and use it to donk someone on the head to clarify that I had no interest in learning and to respect my personal space.

It was the first time I was able to pair up against two women, be shown how to play ‘a useless game’, feel unthreatened and be free to have fun.

I was terrible.

I could visually understand how to hold the cue and work out angles in my mind, but my hands refused to do what my brain told it. I assumed that with the dexterity that has followed me since childhood, I would be able to push a ball around a table with a stick. I could not.

The hands that can fold dumplings, play the piano, touch type, slice vegetables with consistent accuracy, detach animal flesh from bone, stir fry, separate cocktail tins, properly present and open wine, carry plates, shape bread, pull dough, hand-laminate viennoiserie, tie knots, punch faces and climb tissu were incapable of balling up in shapes to support a cue.

The skills are not transferrable.