to have and to hold
To hold something in the palm of your hands is an experience that is all at once powerful and softening.
Our palms have so much life in them, literally bursting through the fingertips, expressing the very emotion on our faces and on our lips. Constantly reaching out or pulling back. You or me. You and me. Just you. The epitome of expression. Grasping, sticking, gripping, directing, cupping, holding, protecting, embracing, connecting. The slightest movement means everything.
I would walk a mile right now, just to have these creatures be held. Even if just for a moment, even if it could only be just one.
It is a strange, almost disorienting experience when you think about your body in terms of its separate parts. We are so accustomed to thinking of ourselves as one robotic operating machine when really we are made up of countless pieces, most beyond our comprehension. Parts we don't even know exist. Parts we have but we pretend to ignore. So why do we act like we know all abou it? At the moment, I am thinking only of my hands--all that they do for me and consequently, all that they deserve. I want to know that someone else knows what these hands have done, what they want to do, what larger narrative they are a part of, and what they are experiencing. Because these hands are my own. Not in the way that Jewel might have thought that they are, but in their own way. Their own Emily way.
I examine them. The knuckle skin is scruched and spotted with specks of white. Dehydrated skin that has been ignored and slathered over and over with frothy perfumed foams that we say smell "nice" and clear chemical gels that we deem mandatory in this world war against the new age terrorist - he is called Germs. The finger nails are uneven and pink. Some attempt at feminine maincuring is evident, the nails are short and filed with rounded edges, but the usual laquer and sparkle are non-existent. The nail beds are pale as a baby's bottom and the cuticles resemble white gnarly roots, similar to those of a common garden weed. Clearly no cream has been applied. Tsk tsk. And on top of all that, through all this neglect and natural wear and tear, the leftover pieces of sun still manage to show through on the gloves of skin, faint clusters of oldly shaped brown-ish polka dots, reassuring myself the owner that yes, these hands are a part of you, they share your mark.
So take them.
Our palms have so much life in them, literally bursting through the fingertips, expressing the very emotion on our faces and on our lips. Constantly reaching out or pulling back. You or me. You and me. Just you. The epitome of expression. Grasping, sticking, gripping, directing, cupping, holding, protecting, embracing, connecting. The slightest movement means everything.
I would walk a mile right now, just to have these creatures be held. Even if just for a moment, even if it could only be just one.
It is a strange, almost disorienting experience when you think about your body in terms of its separate parts. We are so accustomed to thinking of ourselves as one robotic operating machine when really we are made up of countless pieces, most beyond our comprehension. Parts we don't even know exist. Parts we have but we pretend to ignore. So why do we act like we know all abou it? At the moment, I am thinking only of my hands--all that they do for me and consequently, all that they deserve. I want to know that someone else knows what these hands have done, what they want to do, what larger narrative they are a part of, and what they are experiencing. Because these hands are my own. Not in the way that Jewel might have thought that they are, but in their own way. Their own Emily way.
I examine them. The knuckle skin is scruched and spotted with specks of white. Dehydrated skin that has been ignored and slathered over and over with frothy perfumed foams that we say smell "nice" and clear chemical gels that we deem mandatory in this world war against the new age terrorist - he is called Germs. The finger nails are uneven and pink. Some attempt at feminine maincuring is evident, the nails are short and filed with rounded edges, but the usual laquer and sparkle are non-existent. The nail beds are pale as a baby's bottom and the cuticles resemble white gnarly roots, similar to those of a common garden weed. Clearly no cream has been applied. Tsk tsk. And on top of all that, through all this neglect and natural wear and tear, the leftover pieces of sun still manage to show through on the gloves of skin, faint clusters of oldly shaped brown-ish polka dots, reassuring myself the owner that yes, these hands are a part of you, they share your mark.
So take them.