Hands Up!

A meditation on my mitts

One summer, long ago, I worked as an assistant to a TV ad producer who was casting a hand model for a toothpaste commercial. According to my boss, Sandy, the actor’s hands were sufficient for filming at a distance, but not quite ready for their close-up. When the first model arrived, notably wearing gloves on a steamy summer day, Sandy quickly set upon her and began a rigorous inspection of her paws. The model teased off her gloves (with a barely perceptible wink, I swear) to reveal astonishingly impeccable hands. She sported zero architectural defects from wrist to fingertips, no nubby phalanges, no venous ridges or tendinous escarpments, each digit extending from her palm in perfect proportion to the whole. But it was the riverstone smoothness and youthful sheen of her flawless, olive skin that mesmerized us. She was hired on the spot.

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My Aunt Snoonie had what I call chef hands: calloused, tough, able to withstand lava-level temperatures in the kitchen without flinching. I remember that she could hurl a baseball with speed and accuracy, wring a dishcloth so thoroughly that it would dry as if tumbled in a machine, and pick berries or tend the unruly garden without gloves, never drawing attention to the cuts and bruises that would materialize from living roughly and boldly. When I went to culinary school, I thought of her often. She’d have been proud to see me haul stacks of heavy saute pans, double-fisted, into the dishroom. I have so many fond memories of her, yet I sometimes struggle to reconcile how she could raise her hands cruelly one minute, whapping one of my cousins with a wooden spoon, then turn around and, with deep patience and care, lead them in a phonics lesson. Her dedication to children’s literacy could shame Saint Scholastica.

My Nana’s hands were always old. I recall the backs covered with freckles she named “liver spots,” her thin, translucent skin barely constraining a pulsing map of bulbous veins and craggy tendons. Her knuckles were swollen, arthritic, ultimately made worse by a fall in the dank basement of our tenement, breaking her finger as she attempted to replace a fuse. Nana kept a small pot of Pond’s Cold Cream in almost every room, constantly scooping out a thick dollop of the fragrant, pearlescent goo and rubbing it into her skin. Thinking back, it might have been a clever way of concealing a hand-ringing habit, masking her anxiety with a gesture of self-care. When I practice a meditation in which I’m prompted to imagine Grandmother Earth’s hands gently touching my hair, pouring love and light all over me, Nana’s are the hands that soothe me.

When I think of my Mommy’s hands, I remember how they were long and shapely, unblemished, often tipped in fiery red press-on fingernails. For a short time in my teens, she pulled long, sultry drags from a cigarette holder a la Marlene Dietrich. It was such an elegant expression of the vice; it inspired my own brief smoking habit. But it’s her fingertips that are uniquely hers: each distal knuckle curls upwards as if intentionally bound so in childhood. Because of this curvature, a kind of floral, frilly effect occurs when she talks with her hands (which is one hundred percent of the time), her curly fingers undulating in the air like anemones moved by the tide of her chatter. She herself fell a few years back and now has a permanently bird-flipping middle finger on one hand. It’s very on brand.

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When I moved to North Carolina a few years ago, I began to indulge in a regular manicure practice. I had not enjoyed a professional manicure in years, and it had certainly never been a routine experience or valued expense. I’ve always been more of a high-maintenance wannabe, historically experiencing regret immediately after a vanity splurge. These days, I am fully committed to having my nails shaped and lacquered on the regular, and I love love love how it makes my hands look: polished and prioritized. It’s a little thing that goes a long way: my nails matter, therefore I matter. It might be a stretch for some (like my husband) to understand, but for me it’s become an act of self-care and self-love that allows me to put myself first without triggering a tirade of self-criticism. Sure, my hands are peppered with spots that make me look older than I feel, and I might have a vanity savings account with a little cash earmarked for a future treatment or two, but I’m pleased with their shape and, especially, with how well they have served me.

My hands have chopped thousands of vegetables, wiped away buckets of tears, spiked hundreds of volleyballs, stroked feverish foreheads, and grasped innumerable ballpoint pens as I poured my heart out in dozens of journals. I’ve used them to love-punch and bug-punch my friends and family, and I’ve cradled and carried injured or lost fauna to safe places. I’ve wielded knives that ended the lives of small creatures, an act of such surprising reverence I think every flesh-eater should experience it at least once. My hands have communicated Stop, Come hither, Fuck you!, and I give up. They’ve snapped a gazillion times to a gazillion songs, and they’ve given succor and received generosity. I am grateful for their strength and suppleness. And I really like the hint of a curve upwards at their tips.