Hands Anonymous

International hands’ day?

In our haste to Instagram, tweet, Facebook and YouTube ourselves, we forgot to thank our benefactor: hands.  It can also be attributed to specialisation, where we separate totality. 

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.