February Focus: Day Twenty-Five
a) parental appendages
My mother had beautiful hands. She was a hand model in addition to everything else she did in life. Her fingernails would grow fast; she wore them long with nail polish until one day she became allergic to it. So she kept the strengthener on to make sure they wouldn’t break. They were graceful. Stunning. In magazines. Dad and I found her “go-see” portfolio in one of their closets the other day. Not only were there head-turning headshots, some my father photographed himself, there were also her hand modeling shots. Long, manicured fingernails attached to slender fingers tuning a guitar. Another showed a magazine ad with her delicate grasp on a pepper grinder. Still another, she clutched a single rose, her nails matching its vibrant red.
They’re beautiful. Every new photo of my mother I see is unbelievable in its own way. She was so perfect, so stunning, so effortlessly elegant in her own way.
And then I look down at myself and wonder why I never got the hang of taking as good of care of my own mitts.
2) chewed-up character
I never really liked my hands. Overall they’re just okay. Still a little clawed up, but healing. I always thought of my fingers as fat, with nails that only sometimes wanted to grow. When I’m able to grow my fingernails out, I do like how my hands look as a whole. My fingers are slender, and I feel more aware of their movements. Especially as I talk with my hands so much.
But most of the time, I feel as though I’ve got these stubby little sausages drumming away at my keyboard, nails unkempt, unpolished, red, raw, and throbbing from my endless skin picking. I’ve written about this before, but I’ve been picking at my fingers since I was a kid. It’s something my mother never did to herself, but always called me out on it, mostly because she didn’t want me to ruin my hands.
And she was right. I struggled with biting such large chunks out of my fingers that there’d be deep divots on the sides, rips on my cuticles, drawing blood on the wrong pull. The scars have healed, but they look weathered. Red tips that look swollen and dry most of the time. But as I get older, I don’t mind as much. I lotion them every night and make sure my nails are at least presentable, until I have to chew the crap out of another painful hangnail. Being a hand model was not in the cards for me, but when all is said and done, at least I’ve got a grip on what my paws present.
c) meticulous metacarpals
I can comfortably say I work with my hands, though fingertips may be more appropriate, as my livelihood depends on writing. I may not be sculpting or painting, it’s just a different kind of creating. You can tell when someone does good work with their hands. It depends on what they have to grip. Laborers who throw heavy things will have mitts made out of metal. Writers like me will have something a bit more slender. Hands always give away when someone has put effort in, even if all that is includes pointing at people from behind a desk. Someone who writes a lot of checks has got the phalanges to prove it.
But it pains me to see someone’s hands who you can tell they’ve never worked a day in their lives. I see it with Joe Biden’s hands. Take a look next time you see them. There’s no life to them. I don’t know what they’ve been doing this whole time, but it’s certainly nothing good. It makes me sick to think about. There’s something so sinister about deceptively soft hands that I get fixated on just what the hell else you’re doing if you don’t use your appendages for anything.
I know it’s judgmental and not entirely fair, but just like anything else we showcase to the world, our hands can show our true character. They can portray our strength. Our livelihoods. Our attention to detail. It’s important to know what extremities you’ve got in front of you, and how you use them to get by. I hope in the future we find purpose in our hands and put to rest any jobs that require no lifting of any finger. Put in the work this time. Don’t just open your palms and expect it to arrive.
Also, I’m sorry, Donald. They are small. But please, don’t let that stop you from putting up your dukes and b*tchslapping the hell outta those who need it.
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