Biggest hands

I love everything about hands. I don’t want to pick favorites when it comes to hands, that seems unfair, yet I can’t help myself. My favorites are the new hands, all pink and sparkly, squishy and out of control. They are matched with old hands, weathered, wrinkled, stretched, and steady. My grandpa’s hands. My little niece’s hands. The most to learn and learned.

One of my favorite movies right now is a story about a group of kids who are on the outside, trying to fit in. There’s one scene that replays in my head after I watch this. One of the little girls pushes another one down and yells: “We were supposed to be permanent!” And she starts to run away. The girl that was pushed into a slop of mud pulls herself up and runs after her, screaming: “Don’t leave me! We’re gonna be permanent!” My heart feels like it is being ripped out of my chest each time I watch this scene. I love the little girl for running and I love the little girl for demanding not to be left, out of desperation, fear, love. “Don’t leave me”, words no one ever wants to say out loud. The permanence of their friendship and existence together is what makes me so damn sad. And I’m unsure why. It’s a weird twisted cone of achy love and joy: to live, grow permanent with another person you love. This girl, her name is Christmas, really doesn’t have much. Her mama died when she was little, she looks at the stars and talks to the aliens, and she tells them she hopes they have what she has; she is the most honest little girl I’ve ever watched.

The biggest hands are often the smallest. The ones that peek into wordless moments, offering the only comfort the heart is capable of receiving. The pink etched palms that come out of nowhere, appearing like the fog of the mountains in Vermont, grasping onto tangles of shaking fingers, steady them, make them brave. I watch moments like this happen everyday: a mama holding a daughter’s hand as she walks to the school door for the first time. A wife squeezing a husband’s hand as they wait to hear news. A coach using his hand to steady an athlete. Hands have their own eyes, their own ears, they breathe their own comfort, and they sense their own danger. Hands are the scariest and most beautiful. Capable of all destruction. Capable of all love. There is no other part of the body that holds that job, except perhaps the lips, which have to produce words for either to occur. The wrinkles of hands are ones that are there from birth until death. They are honest and true, forever revealing, always strong. It’s interesting to me how holding hands can be more intimate than sex, these days. But I also like that. I think it speaks volumes to the simple and ordinary that creates the most extraordinary feeling. One of comfort, security, grounding, bravery, and love. All things we could use more of these days.