hands

There are a few pictures of me that I really do like.  This is one of them.  Actually, it is the only favorite one I currently have in my possession.  I was four.  I was wearing my favorite sweatshirt.  I was very happy.  See?

It was my dearly departed maternal grandmother’s favorite picture of me.  She had it inside a locket she wore on her necklace.  I think my mother still has the locket, for safe keeping, with other very special mementos.

Can I be found in that little girl from then?  Is there a part of that little girl from then in me now?  Yes to both questions.  I am still the same in many ways.

I experience happiness and joy the same now as then.  Last night, a smidgeon of that giggly ecstasy broke through when I got the wonderful news about the Heartsong Award.  I still chatter on ceaselessly, wearing out the ear canals of just about anyone who will listen to me.  I still am a klutz, tripping over my own feet and sometimes losing my balance for no apparent reason.

When I first came upon the picture last year, I scanned it into my computer and e-mailed it to several friends.  Most said that they could still see little resemblance.  One said that my hands have not changed a bit, other than they are now slightly larger.

I peered closely and she is right, my hands do look remarkably the same then as now.  I did not realize that could be so.  Somehow, this seems important to me.  I am not sure why.

I do know that hands tell lots about a person.  I come from a line of seamstresses.  My mother went to work at the shirt factory her mother worked in, within a week of graduating high-school.  My mother told me that if ever I went to work in a sewing factory, she’d break every one of my fingers.  I believed her.

My grandmother seemed like such a very old lady to me, as a small child.  I loved her very much.  One day I told her that I could tell she was an old person.  Know how?  Cuz she got scruchee skin, I pronounced, rubbing the back of her hand carefully.  I hope I age as gracefully, lovely as she did.

My mother’s hands are fine, slender fingers with naturally pretty nails that are strong.  Her cool palm held my forehead when I would be sick.  Her fingers move nimbly about, threading needles, kneading dough, doing a multitude of tasks.

But, years of labor have curved her fingers, leaving her knuckles swollen and arthritic.  She has beautiful hands; hands that raised the four year old child pictured to the woman who uses her hands to write/type now.  Her skin is only slightly scruchee.

My hands are scarred with numerous tiny creases from untold, unremembered cuts, scrapes, and such.  Recently I went through an elaborate fingerprinting process so that I could be cleared for a background check in order that I might volunteer with a very special segment of our population, those with mental retardation.  I was quite fascinated with all the whorls, swirls, interruptions, creases, and the like.

I don’t know what I would do without my hands.  I’ve grown rather attached to them over the years.  I hope I might keep them always.  Even when I am old and they are scruchee.