Forgotten Hands
For example, we periodically
pamper nails with manicures, sometimes using ten colours of nail polish. We also colour them green on St. Patrick’s Day
to match the hair dye.
The palm is excluded from such
adulation, which is unfortunate because it is the seat of the hand. Your hands have lines that look like a V or a
Y, depending on how you look at it.
I was brought up by my grandparents,
uncles and aunts and they liked interpreting the lines of my palm. I always smiled but secretly wished I would
never grow old. How can they determine
the fate of a child through palm reading?
Call it youth arrogance.
Hands should be celebrated
holistically because they are life, they make things happen. We are talking about looking at things in
their totality but, indulge me. Let’s dissect
the word handle. Hand-le.
·
He’s in a mental home because he couldn’t handle
it anymore.
·
They divorced because they couldn’t handle the
step-kids.
·
I quit. I
can’t handle it anymore.
·
Glass. Handle
with care.
·
Nuclear weapons.
Handle with care.
Languages all over the world have
idioms and customs that put hands in the centre of existence for example, in
most cultures, the bride and groom feed each other. Hands
prepare food. They wash the behind after
the toilet business. It goes on and on,
like day giving way to night. This is
the cycle. Life.
Toddlers, because they are
in a state of purity understand it better than intellectually polluted adults. They don’t need credit cards to be
happy. They want food in their bellies
and lots of people around, preferably other children.
Then they clap in their
high chairs or parent’s lap. They bring
the mini-hands together to thank the food and human company. I wish I had listened to my grandmother more,
about the importance of my palm lines.Maybe I should take my palms for a palmy-cure.
By: Nonqaba waka Msimang.
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