Hands-On Life

Was looking at my hands last night and thinking that I really need a manicure and to actually remember to put on lotion every once in a while and for Pete's sake, how pathetic is it to have scraped the one knuckle so badly on the inside of a laundry basket of all things??  If I'd gotten it from punching a heavy bag or something it would be a lot cooler.  These hands are strong, but not beautiful--banged up and sinewy, a few spots, rarely nail-polished.    

But then, they have held babies and scrubbed floors and grown food from bare dirt and changed diapers and painted walls and grouted tile.  They have pressed the keys of saxophones and trumpets and held drumsticks and cooked huge festive meals and small family ones and folded thousands of loads of laundry and washed mountains of dishes and sewed elaborate pieces of cross-stitch.  They have typed legal documents and lab reports and a thesis, held test tubes and plates of cells and pipetters in a lab, and pulled me up rock walls and rough trails.  They can throw a baseball and make a jump shot and wipe away the tears of a crying child.  They cradled our beloved cat as she went to sleep for the final time last year, and soothe the dog when she's feisty or upset.  They proudly wear the ring of the man who loves me.  And they can deliver a hammerfist punch or knifehand strike that can break a wooden board when the situation calls for it.

So, all in all, I guess they've earned their bumps.  I could make them prettier (maybe red polish, Ms. Moon??), but I should probably just consider them a badge of honor.

They may not look like this:

But that's