the hands have it

pictures from flickr, i-d and http://francesberesfordgrant.tumblr.com/ - an absolutely lovely tumblr by my absolutely lovely friend, who is about the coolest thing since sliced bread. if you want pictures to inspire, cherish, comfort and commiserate, check it out. you won't regret it!


something my mum has always said to me, and advice i'm sure you've all heard before, is that you can tell a lot about a person by looking at their hands. I'm fascinated by them, which probably explains my love of nail polish, but there is something so incredible about hands. you feel things with them, and touch has always been one of my favourite senses. the rough of raw silk, the waxy skin of a banana, cool rush of water. It's your hand that takes the first plunge and shows you these things.

Girls with so many rings they can't keep their hands closed, guys who clamp their cigarettes between their index and thumb, chipped nail polish bitten down to the quick, reminders scribbled all over a palm, hands that are graceful, hands that are crude, hands that set you on fire with just one touch... my best friend has hands that are beautiful. elegant. she is almost french in the way she gestures with them, saying more with one careless, lip-bitting flick of the wrist than i can with paragraph after paragraph of words. My hands are nowhere near as lovely, little small things that they are, but what i like about my hands is their history. my broken finger from a vicious hockey game that never quite healed straight, the writer's bump on my fourth finger right hand that comes from hours and hours of scribbling away, the freckle on my palm, hidden where only i can see it. the back of my hand that is invariably covered with black pen 'save money!', 'pick up eddie', 'read bliss'. my hands have written novels, wiped away tears, touched a lover, mixed cocktails, stubbed out lipstick stained cigarettes.

hands, in more ways than one, tell a story. what do yours say?


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