Hands

Yeah, the things at the end of your arms.

**Listen to this piece read by the author**

Music: Wassermannmusik (Aquarian Music) I.

§

They’re always there. Makes them a tricky thing to pin down. They also don’t really like being pinned down, so it makes sense.

I was lying in bed last night next to my wife and I realized what they were, hands. What else they were, I mean.

I hear you. “Hands? You know hands, dude. What are you talking about?”

Of course I know hands.

That’s the problem. All this knowing got me thinking I know.

Because they’re attached right there to the arm which is attached to the shoulder which is attached to the…you never think much about them and you go around thinking you know them like the back of your-

Which, if you’re like me, you never really took a nice long look at.

There’s so much to know in this life. There’s so much to study, there’s so much to learn, so much to help. People are suffering out there for God sake. People are losing their shit. People are being stomped out and lulled into a nightmare. People are going crazy. The system is falling apart. Being torn apart. Shredded like cheddar. People are hurting, real people are really hurting and you want to take a closer look at hands?

My self says to myself when protecting me from moving into something tender and unacceptable.

They grab things, hands. There. Done. Now let’s go change the world.

She reached over and grabbed my arm. I felt her fingers on my skin. No, not on the skin. I felt them in my mind on my skin. I felt her intention on my skin. I felt her want to reach over and touch me on my skin. I felt that because she didn’t just lay her fingers there. She squeezed a little. With what? Her hands? No. Her mind. Her heart. Her desire to be close. Her appreciation that there was a thing sitting next to her that she could share her love with. That’s what she squeezed with. Hands aren’t just hands and we all know it. Nothing’s more dexterous than a ten fingered heart. These keys don’t press themselves.

The protection is strong. I sat here for an hour fighting with myself to start writing this. Imagine that. An hour of invisible struggle just trying to get my hands to write about themselves.

Why was it painful, you might ask. Because if it’s not productive, one to one, this to that, if it doesn’t tell me how to make money, grow my thing, make more friends, get ahead, then what good is it? It’s a waste is what I’ll say and then I’ll go do something that’s the equivalent of throwing my time in the Pacific Ocean with all the other stuff hands made.

I’ve spent so much time in my life using these hands to get somewhere, to say things I thought needed to be said, do things I thought needed to be done, that fighting the urge to continue that habit is the emotional equivalent of having your index dipped in honey and not taking a single taste.

They keep us alive, hands do. Always have, and for that I put them together in front of my chest and close my eyes, Amen.

Keep you alive, yes, they will do that. Get you from here to there, they’ll do that, too. They’ll feed you, hands will. Literally, I mean. They’ll work tirelessly for you, hands will, and they’ll do it forever, and after thousands of years of having them we’ll sit around and whittle a stick in front of a fire in the back yard of our one point eight million dollar craftsman bungalow fixed with a/c units and robots that fold our clothes and raise our kids and know we’ve made it to the pinnacle of existence. Look what hands have done, we’ll say. Amazing.

Reminder, people are suffering out there.

We just do things with them, our hands. Make things. Move things. Hold things. Because they can do that too, you know. Hold things. And what can they hold? Glasses, bottles of shampoo, bicycle handles, soil, pieces of paper, cardboard boxes, garage door openers.

But I was sitting in bed being the thing that was being held and it dawned on me that of all the things hands can do, holding another one, might just be the reason it exists in the first place.

If you really want to know what hands are for, I have a little experiment for you. Go around the room you’re in and pick up some random things and see what it feels like. Your water bottle, a piece of soap, a key, a dead bug. Do it, one after another, sequentially, and then once you’ve done five six ‘items’ go ahead and find a hand.

Electricity feels like something, let’s not forget.

Hands see. That’s what they do. I don’t need to tell you that, of course, the hands will tell you themselves, because they do that too, you know...they speak. And they can say things a mouth can only dream of saying. Hands know that the phrase “I love you” is basically a botched attempt at doing a fraction of what the tip of a single finger can do to another. Longing is the gap between mountains.

Hands in hands don’t just say I love you, they say I’m here for you. I’ve got you my love. You’re not alone in this wild maze. We might be lost, but we’re lost together. What a dream, et al.

Words are things we shout from the mountain tops when we can’t be close enough to hold each other. If we’re close enough to hold each other and shouting, maybe we should, I don’t know, hold each other?

And there I am in bed night after night saying “Good night. I love you” as if I’ve done something that matters. As a means of wiping my you-know-what’s clean of the day, shut my eyes and fade into tomorrow again.

There are reasons to stop moving so goddamn fast all the time and listen to the impulse to look down and stare into the creases of time embedded into the things we call palms.

Will you do that? Look down into your hands? Right now. promise me. Let’s shake on it.

If even for a moment. Just give yourself a moment.

I’m begging me. A tiny moment to forget all the things you think you know and just say one helpless true little thing. Wait, what the hell are these things for?

Hands are a good place to start. The tongue might not be a bad second stop, but there’s not an inch of reality not needing a second look.

May we stop and look. People are suffering for Gods sake. For the love of fucking hands, may we stop and look.

I felt her hand in mine and remembered that to go to bed hand in hand…

That’s the whole point.

🫴