Day Thirty One: Hands

I have nice hands.

I know I didn’t pot this yesterday the way I was supposed to, but I had a big party I was planning and was busy all afternoon. Remember my previously mentioned planning obsession? Well, couple that personality trait with a blizzard and a bunch of friends I hadn’t seen in a while and you had one girl with nothing but a party on her mind.

Back to the blog: I love my hands because I can do a lot with them. This seems really stupid because, well duh, that’s what hands are for. But I’m not like normal people. Over the course of my lifetime, I have taught my hands to play the piano, the guitar, the bahoran (it’s a type of Irish drum.) I’ve perfected the art of cake decorating, candy making, baking and sculpting. I paint, I draw, albeit poorly; I write frequently and have been told I have interesting handwriting. I have used my hands to stitch up wounds, fix my car, build houses and replace plumbing.

Hands can tell you a lot about a person. They can tell you what they do for a living, how hard they work and how often they bathe. We use them to heal and to hurt. We use them to flip people the bird for driving like assholes in traffic. We use them to carry our boxes and books and bags, we write, read, wave and wrap our Christmas presents. You would be hard pressed to find a job or activity that doesn’t involve using our hands.

Maybe it’s a silly thing about myself to love, but I do love it. Think of how much harder your life would be if you didn’t have hands or if your hands didn’t function the normal way. Our world has been designed to accommodate those with developed hands and fingers. Sometimes we forget that not everyone in the world is as lucky as we are.

Challenge to my readers:

Love your hands. Give them a nice bath in the sink and put on some lotion. Paint your nails, get a manicure. Pay attention to how often you use them, even without thinking about it.