How strange to think that hands are the vehicle to life. Two extremities capable of doing things without any conscious knowledge. Even as you write these words, they move on their own. The most simple functions that give our lives meaning; hands as the avenue to pleasure, art, service, errands, joy. Perhaps they are calloused or colored or decorated with rings. Perhaps even a single ring to inform the world that you have found your Great Love.
Most hands tell stories of their own; cracked hands worn down by years of labor, or a handshake so firm and confident it's like they have something to prove. An artist lovingly calls them his tools and strives to protect them from danger. (You wonder: how does one actually protect hands from danger?) A trained chef works by intuition, hands that move, like writing, without command.
When you are in love, you can recognize the hands of your lover with eyes closed. This is the best kind of intimacy, when a lover’s touch is so delicious, so delightful, that you can recognize them even in your dreams. A lover’s hands: the way they fit in your palm, or dance up your back and fit around your neck the way only a lover’s hand can find its way so perfectly into the crevices of your body. The hands of pleasure. Yours: soft, and delicate. His: warm, yet masculine. Hands you like to kiss, they're so beautiful. Your favorite thing about him.
Ah, hands, yes. They help us get through life. You hold your hand out to a stranger to say: I see you. For without hands, how would we show our affection?
Those 10 fingers — if you’re lucky — have and hold the most inconsequential of objects: subway doors, pencils, door handles, a coffee mug, forks, knives, new and used books, flower vases, the refrigerator door, your own hair, your own face, your clothing as you put it on and your clothing when it’s already on, bike handles, countertops, restaurant doors, cocktail glasses, fruits that come from trees — apples, bananas, pears, remote controls, credit cards, printed concert tickets (maybe?), your cell phone (put it down), the handle of a frying pan, the New Yorker in print, the vacuum cleaner, your metrocard as you slide through the turnstile, among others.
For a writer, hands can be the source of inspiration. When they dance to their own rhythm, moving across a page, flowing with lightness over a piece of paper. Words traveling from the subconscious and shooting out the tip of a pen. How glorious these moments are!
Like your lover, but much unlike your lover, you know your family’s hands. A sister’s whose are petite like a child, so small and delicate you forget she is older when you hold them. A birthmark directly below the left ring finger. Hands that used to paint, and now enjoy other pleasures: puzzles and cooking and turning pages of books.
Your mother’s have been with you through everything, tenderness in moments of celebration and sorrow, and also everything in between. When you were younger, hands that made you cave into yourself and slither out of reach. Stop touching me! Now you know all she wanted was to hold you close, hold you tightly, because you are her baby. Her Child. She once held your heartbeat within her, her hands touched you before you were you. Later in life, as you become a woman, you walk in the streets and wrap your fingers around hers for a warmth that makes you feel instantly at home, instantly like her child again. Ah yes, a mother’s hands, there are nothing like them.
Except for your father’s — hands that have played the soundtrack of your life. They travel up and down the piano, open and close holes on the saxophone and harmonica. Hands that make music that gives life meaning. These hands in particular — the two that belong to your father — used to brush the knots out of your hair until you were 10 years old, and then taught you how to play poker like the boys, and at 15.5 years old, how to drive a car. You trust those hands with every part of you. How lucky your mother is to hold them through life.