The artist

This morning, I found myself sitting in a reclined chair with a bib across my chest, my mouth frozen open, with a little drool sucking tube resting on my bottom lip, hooked under my tongue. The dental hygienist's hands were very busy inside my open mouth, moving in and out, in and out, cleaning and scraping and trying to polish off the rough edges on my Swedish filling that I picked up in England in February.

She picked up a silver tool, studied it in the light, rotated it to examine the tip, and then put it down and picked up another. This she also rotated, then gently replaced and picked up another before sticking it back into my mouth.

I couldn't tell the difference. All the tools a had a little pointy hooky thing at the end that looked ... um ... pointy. But as I watched the hygienist study them carefully, trying to match the tools to my mouth, I realized that she was an artist. She reminded me of a sculptor, selecting the perfect tool to do the perfect job. Or a painter, choosing the pigments and brushes with care. She was a true craftsman. A highly skilled worker with a practiced ability to know the difference between the pointy hook and the ... other pointy hook.

I would have relaxed under her capable hands at this point, except that I was, um, at the dentist's office with a drool sucker tube hooked under my tongue. Even so, I left appreciating the art that is tooth scraping. Wow. Didn't expect to find the artist in the hygienist chair.