The Hands

Early morning memory...

Years ago, the winter after my father died, I used to ride the 6 AM Chestnut Hill bus to work every morning. The people who rode that bus were the janitors, the maids, the waitresses. The people who bust their tail every day to earn enough money to pay the rent, buy the food, and hopefully, allow them the occasional movie or lunch at a decent restaurant.

I always sat at the very front of the bus, my waitress feet still aching from the day before, and too sore to waste the steps to sit further in the bus away from the doors that allowed the freezing winter wind in at each stop. Across from me were two more seats, facing my seat from across the aisle.

She always sat in the seat opposite me. An old, exhausted looking black woman, her hair mostly covered by a wool hat. She sat with dignity, her ankles always crossed, her hands always folded in her lap, atop her threadbare coat. Old. Heh. She was probably fifty. But to me, an 18 year old girl, she looked ancient and careworn. Ancient she was not. But careworn, well. I think that adjective is a good one.

I used to look surrepticiously at her hands. Those two hands folded in her lap. They were worker's hands. Calloused and knotted up, the joints swollen. Rough, working hands.

Sometimes I would wonder about her hands. What experiences had she had? What caused her to have to work so hard that her hands showed the end result of all that labor? What babies had she diapered? What husband had she caressed with those same hands? What tears had she wiped from her own eyes? And what nightmares had she pushed away with a single touch of those hands? Strange thoughts at a strange time of day.

Today, 42 years later, I look down at my own hands. My knuckles are swollen. My fingernails ridged and weirdly filed. My hands are often numb from my never-ending battle with Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, or when they are not numb, they throb sharply with arthritis.

They are not beautiful hands. But they are hands with character. They are the hands of a woman who has worked hard in her life, hands that have soothed a child's fevered brow, hands that have crocheted sweaters to keep loved ones warm, hands that have reached out to others through the act of putting pen to paper and writing words meant to bring feelings to the reader.

They are not beautiful hands. Yet, in their ugliness, there is beauty of a kind more deep and lasting than if they were the bejewelled and begloved hands of a Queen.