Week 6 – My Hands
February 4, 2008
My Hands
Some women shield their hands from the elements. They wear gloves at night, smothering their smooth skin with oilments to soothe and diminish the signposts of rigor, work or age. For some reason, I have always been the opposite. I want to land in my grave with hands that proudly show the world that I have used them, and created with them. Like the scars on my body, they tell of who I am, of my life and stories.
This year, for the first time, I saw the weathered skin of summers spent outdoors reflected across the back of my hands. While driving I stretch them over my steering wheel. Which grip stretches the skin the most, hiding these new wrinkles? Hmmmm. For years I had tight calluses from griping heavy handles of wheelbarrows, shovels, and trowels. My skin was stained with earth. I thought it was cool. I didn’t like black fingernails, but I cut them close. Then they grew soft with being inside and working on computers. I was not proud of them anymore, but I got to wear nice clothes and work sheltered from the winter, away from the Oregon sleet. Once I began making jewelry, my nails were scraped and worked down to jagged smithereens, and the tools and torches caused cuts, scrapes and occasionally burns. My fingertips grew tough. Now I wonder about the bleachwater, hot dishwater, knives, oven-hot pots, flames on the stove. I am only in a class, but what blisters, cuts, and wear and tear will make their mark? How will the kitchen shape my hands? As I wipe my hands for the millionth time on my apron towel, I wonder. And I think it probably will be cool.
- Blake
