Hands

All too often do we neglect the serene beauty and complexity of our hands

I re-read the last chapter of Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential last evening after returning home from work, hands chapped from cleaning remenents of tomato and mango chutney from the inside of serving glasses, and suckling on my fingertips to

alleviate the ache from burned fingers.

Bourdain's eloquence reminiscing about all the scars on his nearly mutilated hands from decades in the kitchen reminds me of an ancient tree, reminds me that we are all of the earth and of nature, our scars and marks on perforated skin tell stories. At the zenith of his book he serves up a montage of scar stories that is nothing short of beautiful. “I take stock in my extremities, idly examining the burns, old and new, checking the condition of my calluses, noting with some unhappiness, the effects of age and hot metal” (Bourdain 296). Perhaps after all of the narrative, all of the blood, the sweat, the boiling water and flaming burners, the degrading and elation, the pleasure and pain, perhaps that’s what it comes down to, our scars. Patterns of stories molded and branded into us. A reminder of what was and what will be.

I think of my grandmothers hands, remember them this way and then look at my own, wondering how they have changed and will change over time. This is what I see.

*

It is still a mystery who I have inherited my

hands from. They do not resemble my mother’s or fathers nor their parents. But I hope they age the way my grandmother’s hands have. I spent my childhood memorizing every part of them, the surface of her palms and the lines that undulate and swerve across her joints.

Hers are muted and pearly in the light, holding tranquility in her palms. Their shape is one that time cultivates, weathered and worn.

My young hands are showing the beginnings of calluses. I have been told I can stop a stranger if my hands are at use. They can make a simple task worth watching, captivating even.

Her flesh with its balmy folds and puckers seems as if it has just been laid across her bones like paper mache.

My hands remind of blown glass, Christmas ornaments. They appear delicate and weak, but conceal resilience that has withstood oven burns, paper cuts and chapped wint

er air.

My grandmother’s palms trap scents of basil and mint from cooking supper or pulling weeds from her herb garden.

The tips of my fingers and the spaces between them absorb the scent of perfume from hurried spritzes out of the bottle and coffee when I sop up the foam from the bottom of a daily cappuccino. The dull hint of flowers and espresso beans lingers there all day. Sometimes I rest my hand across my mouth, just below my lower lip so I can inhale it.

Her knuckles are like uncultured pearls extracted from fresh oysters, silken with a dull sheen. The skin that stretches over them fades in hue when she makes a fist or curls her fingers around crochet hooks. They appear iridescent in the light.

I like how easily my knuckles crack. Using my thumb as leverage, I push each finger into my palm until the joint readjusts with a satisfying pop. This habit makes some cringe and shiver, cover their ears. My mother yells. “Your gorgeous hands are going to end up ru

ined and deformed like mine!” She shoves her hands under my nose. Her knuckles bulge from the center of her fingers that bend in odd angles. The ovals of her fingernails are misshapen and are different, uneven lengths. My mother’s hands remind me of pieces of shrapnel or knotted roots on an ancient tree. But I think they are beautiful in a way I think driftwood and beach glass is beautiful. Natural and weathered from earth. Imperfect, just like her mothers.

My grandmother’s hands have rivulets of indigo veins that I would squeeze between my small fingertips. I loved how they felt as I pressed them down, cutting off blood flow until I lifted my fingertip.

My blood vessels are only visible when I’m cold or vertical. Azure against olive flesh, thin and flowing like raindrop trails on a car window.

My grandmother would encase my hand in hers, enveloping it in a swaddle. I remember her hands always giving off an internal heat that never dulled.

My hands are made like hers, to rub and massage, kneed tense muscles on his torso, roll ovals into the fleshy part of his back with the heels of my palms, scrunch his shoulders with my fingers. I like how his muscles turn into something malleable like dough from the

warmth of my hands, like silly putty or clay, allaying under the power of my exertion.

Imperfections: I hate how they swell in the heat: how the rings that I feel naked without become just snug enough that I have to soap up my hand to slide them off. Typing, writing and cooking are a struggle when my fingers are engorged from summer humidity, refuse to bend, feel as if the skin across my knuckles will split open and ooze like blisters, become clumsy, fumble and falter even the most simple tasks like holding a pencil, brushing my teeth, painting my nails. The tool becomes entangled between the spaces on each hand, falling to the floor or counter where I pick it up only to fumble again. And if I try to make a fist, or spay my fingers across the steering wheel of my car, my flesh stretches across my bones aches more than the joints themselves, like leather or sheep’s skin desiccated on a frame. I hate the hangnails and cracked edges of cuticles that fray near the bed of my nail so that I bite or tear at them until they bleed and well up with blood, until they are sore for days after and I have to rub Vaseline to alleviate and coax them.