Hands
I have my mother's hands. A tiny bit smaller, a different skin tone, but in shape, strikingly like.
It's been so many years since my mother started taking care of her nails (when I was a child we were both nail-biters; she stopped, I didn't) that this becomes much more noticeable when I manage to stop biting mine for awhile. I haven't bitten them in almost three weeks and have been filing conscientiously every few days. Now as I type it's like I'm looking at a bit of Mum. (Except she can't type as fast as me!) In an odd way it's like being close to home.
Our hands are so small they are almost childlike (I can shop for gloves in the children's sections of stores). Somehow, pretty, filed, lightly varnished nails tend to exaggerate this quality rather than making them look more grown up -- or so I think anyway.
Sometimes I feel myself make a gesture, or feel an expression on my face, like one of Mum's too, but that is rarer and not so dependable as just looking down at my little babyish hands.
So I got my hands from my mother. She got them from her mother, who calls them "peasant hands." I like them. They are unique in their littleness and oddly appealing. Despite the fact that I can't play piano or wear big rings without looking silly, they are probably the only part of my body that I would not change, even if pressed, at all.
It's been so many years since my mother started taking care of her nails (when I was a child we were both nail-biters; she stopped, I didn't) that this becomes much more noticeable when I manage to stop biting mine for awhile. I haven't bitten them in almost three weeks and have been filing conscientiously every few days. Now as I type it's like I'm looking at a bit of Mum. (Except she can't type as fast as me!) In an odd way it's like being close to home.
Our hands are so small they are almost childlike (I can shop for gloves in the children's sections of stores). Somehow, pretty, filed, lightly varnished nails tend to exaggerate this quality rather than making them look more grown up -- or so I think anyway.
Sometimes I feel myself make a gesture, or feel an expression on my face, like one of Mum's too, but that is rarer and not so dependable as just looking down at my little babyish hands.
So I got my hands from my mother. She got them from her mother, who calls them "peasant hands." I like them. They are unique in their littleness and oddly appealing. Despite the fact that I can't play piano or wear big rings without looking silly, they are probably the only part of my body that I would not change, even if pressed, at all.