Keep it Handy

The Wisdom of Hands

There are several old English proverbs about hands that spring to mind, each one as ancient as it may be, imparts a deep wisdom that has relevance to our modern lives.

Many hands make light work

Is that true?  Too many cooks spoil the broth…. But I’m not sure a busy, well run kitchen full of chefs would agree.  

Our culture focuses on the importance of independence and self-sufficiency overtly, while covertly controlling us through isolation and fear.  Wouldn’t life be more pleasant and easier if we were able to work cooperatively together? ‘All hands on deck”

Wouldn’t we be happier if we felt safe in each other’s company?

A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush

This reference to hands and birds and bushes seems sexual to me… and brings to mind cheating partners.  All about morality, and being happy with what you ‘know first-hand’; the grass is not greener over there, it is just a trick of the light.  

It strikes me as I bury the dead bird that my neighbours’ cat has left mangled in my garden, that this saying also about the value of a life in contrast to the lives we imagine.  The truth of our experience and the imagined experiences of others.  We can imagine our future, or the lives of those friends we see on facebook, but the real value is in lived experience; here and now. 

I know it like the back of my hand

I look at my hands changing day by day… they are so clearly affected by any activity.  The fingernails look different, each one grows at a different rate and in a different shape.  Doing the gardening can entirely change my hands in one fell swoop.  I don’t know the back of my hand as well as I think… I suppose it must be familiar after all these years, but so familiar that it is difficult to tell whether I know it.I have often wondered if I could draw my hands without looking at them.  How familiar am I with what is here?  As I age the skin become papery and wrinkles.  I take care to moisturise my hands and face, to preserve them as best I can. There is only one thing about my hands which will not change, the identifying feature; my fingerprint, entirely unique. Not even twins have matching fingerprints, and to change it I would have to go through some terrible, difficult process… yet  I couldn’t tell you which was mine out of a selection. I don’t know it first-hand. 

Watching a video I notice the hands of the man who is speaking… they are small and pale and delicate, like a young girls hands. They make him look wimpy and weak.  I don’t respect those hands.  My mother had big strong hands, hands that when they rubbed the knots in my shoulders they got inside and released the tension.  That was before she was old and weak… her touch is flimsy now, and was always a rare commodity given sparingly.  I love the touch of my mother’s comforting hands.  My hands, like hers, have fingers of all different lengths, with the pinkie finger half the length of that rude middle finger.  

I have bulbous ends to my fingers which wrinkle and prune quickly in water, and a contrasting curve to that middle finger and ring finger which leaves a gap.  It’s a genetic anomaly; handed down.

Getting your hands dirty

My friend works with horses, she complains about her rough, big and ugly hands.  She tells me, “That’s how you can spot a horsy person, we have big rough hands because we are always using them.” She works hard… like a woman. She looks delicate and sweet on first impression, but as you get to know her you see how hard she works.  Works hard with her horses, works hard to build a life, and works hard to look delicate and beautiful, to stay feminine and desirable, to hide her intelligence so nobody feels threatened by her.  She is a dab hand.

To bite the hand that feeds you.

Our mothers feed all of us first. I admire women’s hands.  Not like the man in the video who speaks with authority.  He stands there as though he knows he is intelligent, capable and strong, but his hands tell a different story.  He can’t ride a horse. I’m interested in the information he is handing over. He has been selected as a figure of authority. I wonder why I still look at men as the voice of authority? Why do I still doubt and judge the authority of women? Has my hand been forced by those with the upper hand?

The devil makes work for idle hands

Does this mean that trouble makers are those who don’t work hard?  Is hard work the work we enjoy? If we have a free hand, we have time to stop and talk, to think, to consider, to rebel against the norm. We can give a hand to those unfortunate, those unheard, those in need. Those of us with time on our hands have space to create, to weave a story and stories have power. 

Let’s handle our lives with care, and fill our time with handy endeavours.