29/07/2022
I collect hand photos…have for years. I have a thing with hands. Well, rather, I have a thing for what hands can do. I often ask people to send me a picture of their hands after they do something amazing with them…or I take a picture myself if I’m on-scene.
Our hands make us human. Our apposable thumbs were the game-changer of evolution that enabled us to make tools, create art, make music, build wars, and all the other things we’ve chosen to do…and all of it with our own two hands.
Of course, I prefer the positive creative efforts and powers of human hands, but the evils hands create are just as impressionable and important.
I love the dirt on hands that grow things. The dirt under the nails that bring the unctuous earthy smell of magic created in taking seeds and nurturing life that nourishes us, gives us the air we breathe, and cleans our atmosphere on a planetary level. Human hands do that.
I love the grease on hands that work on mechanical things. Engines or mechanisms to ease our toil or take us places. Hands that do this type of work are attached to minds of physics and engineering. These hands solve problems and allow us to travel and ease the burdens of our work to exist. Human hands do that.
I love hands that are covered in creative elements like clay, paint, and bits of stone. These hands birth the beauty of our world in human interpretation of nature and the aspects of our existence we want to capture in efforts to define who and what we are. Human hands do that.
I love the hands that are gnarled after years of weaving, sewing, and knitting the threads of plants, animals, or human-made synthetics. These hands clothe us, make our world comfortable, tell our stories in tapestry, and provide the nets that catch our fish and keep our herds within set boundaries. Human hands do that. Human hands do that.
I love the hands that heal – whether fixing an illness through touch or being the initial vessel of holding in the birth of a new generation. Healing hands keep us well, whole, and bonded. Human hands do that.
Our hands hold the caresses that feed and produce the passions that are the beginnings of our own procreation.
Our hands are the deliverers of parental affection and trust built upon helping to make our offsprings’ boo-boos better.
Our hands build the bonds of industry in the handshakes and fist-bumps that generate colleagues seeking the business passions that drive us and forge invention.
Our hands hold the shiny trinkets and jewels that demonstrate our wealth and announce the bonds and ties of our clan. They hold the vows we make to each other in symbol and strength.
But most of all, I adore the hands of the aged. The twisted, tired, silent storytellers of the person they belong to. Wrinkles and scars. Missing digits or damaged nailbeds. Unremovable grown-in rings so ancient in their placement and lack of removal that they now rest permanently on the old branches of the bearer to meet their end together in fire or earth.
Wouldn’t it be grand if hands could share all they’ve seen, touched, and impacted throughout one single lifetime?
Oh, the tales they could tell. But that is not to be, and these tentacles of tenderness, terror, and treasures – to me – are the true measure of us all.
If you can, if you want, show me your hands, and tell me the things they do or have done...it'll help me know you better.
