My hands are lined with stories

How are your hands serving you today?

Photo by Milan Popovic on Unsplash

Today my house smells like a spring clean: lemons and lavender and sandalwood, and the crisp air of a morning washed by rain. I have just cleaned the house and soon I will drive to Perth for an appointment, but for now, I am at my wooden writing desk, marvelling at my hands. My beautiful, storied hands.

“My hands are small, I know
But they're not yours, they are my own” - Jewel, Hands

I have never before thought my hands were beautiful. Not in the aesthetic, hand model kind of way, even though I have often been told I have the long, slender fingers of a pianist, if not the coordination. I have never had naturally beautiful nails and, while never a nail biter or thumb sucker, my nails rarely grow long and strong. These days, the skin on the back of my hand is thinning, lightly freckled and fine lined; the joints on my fingers are increasingly knobbly, sometimes painful, definitely less supple and more clumsy.

And yet, beautiful they are, my hands.

They are beautiful because in every line, freckle, spot and scar there is a story; every little story forms the shape of my greater story.

Behind the hands lives anxiety

I am a fidgety person, always have been. In my mother’s old photo album, the kind with the sticky pages, there is a yellowing photo of me looking at my baby sister. I am holding my foot. My hands always have an urge to move and so I give them things to do, like stitching and sewing and knitting. If I am feeling anxious, stressed, or bored, my hands need to be occupied, and sometimes this has affected my skin, my nails; I used to habitually press my nails - front, back, sides, the same routine each time. I suspect there are elements of obsessive-compulsive disorder in this. Even now, thinking of this routine, I feel the memory of it in my fingers, calling to me: press me.

I worry about my hands. About not having the full use of them, about the arthritis and trigger finger and other hand-related issues I have become inclined to as I age. In the past three years, I have had two left thumb operations (the first, after a bad break, required complicated splinting for nine months), trigger finger on my right thumb, as well as multiple other fingers. Arthritis is already evident in most of my fingers, but mostly my thumbs. I didn’t expect this yet, not at 53. It scares me, sometimes, because so much of who I am and what I love to do requires the use of my hands. Those months when I was recovering from surgery were some of the most frustrating in my life ... the gradual decline of my fine motor skills, worse on some days than others, remains a frustration, a fear.

And yet, I am also aware that I have two functioning hands and many people don’t even have that.

Taking my hands for granted

I look at my hands again, setting aside the fear and worry; I run my fingers over the back of them and think of all the stories under the skin, on the skin. The memories. The scars. There on the left thumb, that 6cm white line is from the car accident in 2022 and the resulting operations. Remember that rainy day, heading south? Yes, I remember. And underneath that scar, another, from the time I cut an avocado and the knife slipped, and I had to get stitches. A scar on my middle finger, from a scrape against a brick wall. Another on my pinkie, another knife injury that required stitches. On my right thumb, a scar from opening a can, another from slamming my hand in a car door. I shake my head, remembering these mishaps. A few years ago, I broke my right ring finger when it slammed into a fridge door at work - I was trying to catch an ice block that fell from the freezer when I opened it. A friend told me I needed a more interesting story for that one. My fingers have been jarred playing netball, caught in drawers and doors, and nicked with a knife more times than I can count.

Photo by Suhyeon Choi on Unsplash

These hands have lived a life spanning more than five decades. They have have wound mix tapes, dialled rotary phones, played Atari games, shuffled cards, folded paper planes, twisted Rubik’s cubes. They have played chords on guitars, laboriously picked out the notes for “Yesterday” on an organ for one of those concerts we put on for our parents, built Lego creations, styled hair on Barbie doll styling heads. They have typed on typewriters, computers and mobile phones; they have handwritten letters, stories and notes and filled in countless forms. They have drawn pictures and painted; made jewellery and cards and pages for scrapbooks that were never finished. They have stitched and sewed and knitted and wrestled with crochet; they have held books and needles and brushes and pens.

My hands have loved and held, massaged and soothed. They have wiped tears and noses and even smiles off my face. They have sown seeds and weeded and harvested and pruned. They have fixed and created, worked and played. They have worn rings and gloves, bandaids and bandages. They have buttoned and unbuttoned, zipped and unzipped, untangled knots and peeled fruit. They have kneaded and mixed and chopped and measured; they have cupped water and carried bags, children, pets. They have tied shoelaces and ribbons, wrapped gifts and prayed. They have been held and kissed and stroked.

My hands have picked flowers and collected shells, feathers, leaves. With my hands, I have felt the soft skin of a baby, the fluff of a tiny feather, the grainy texture of sand, the warmth of a hot cup. Once, snorkelling in Hawaii, a fish sucked my finger; another time, I stroked the velvety skin of a snake.

I have shielded my eyes from the sun, cupped my ears to hear the faintest of sounds, brushed my hair till it shines, counted hours, days and weeks. My hands hold me up in a plank or downward dog, they tap out rhythms when I sing in the car, they gesture when I am in conversation. They have flourished and they have failed.

Oh, my hands, my beautiful, precious hands. I have been impatient and clumsy and careless too many times; I have used them to self-mutilate, to allay my anxiety. I have pushed them beyond capacity, taken them for granted, and I am realising that I cannot do this anymore. I must take more care, more time; I must listen to my body, to my hands when they need to rest, just as I must give them something to do when my mind is racing and the fidgets are fidgeting.

The backs of my hands are cold now. The sun is setting and it is time to rise from my desk, make dinner, warm the house. To add more layers to a life (extra) ordinary, more memories to these storied hands.

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