hands: the things that may or may not lie in-between them
I find it fascinating how expressive our hands can be, that they’re more telling of our emotions than we might be willing to admit. Watching Pride and Prejudice for the first time only days ago, my mind keeps going back to the close-up of our dear Mr. Darcy’s hand, outstretched, flexing and unrestricted, after touching Miss Elizabeth’s. It’s only a short moment, but it has garnered so much attention on all corners of the internet. Yet, it was noticed.
Noticing someone’s hands feels more intimate than it should. The way they move through the space or the way they interact with each other. Do they reach out as their lips move, taking up more space, pointing, signalling or waving them around? Or are their hands kept within the frame of an invisible glass box in front of them, only moving from the base of their wrists and no other movement. Or do they tremor slightly, not out of nervousness, but because they just do? I pick up on the way they look—large or small, painted and adorned with jewellery or left bare, kept or unkept, scarred or unscarred. Whether a finger or two bends at a slightly different angle than expected, it is beautiful nonetheless.
What I find most beautiful is the way they interact with a pair that is not their own. The way hands change once initial contact has been made, and find a way to react on their own when finding someone physically attractive. That receiving that ounce of confirmation from the other, hands find each other and knot together. That skin on fingertips can slightly recoil due to the unfamiliar surface at first, but can grow used to it in the next second. That they can grow deprived as time has elapsed, and would appear as a simple hand on the knee or as complex as tracing the natural or unnatural lines on their body. Or the need to fix a strand of hair fallen over their face, or to straighten an upturned collar carefully, as if to avoid disturbing their peace.
Hands could be playful enough that you wouldn’t give them a second thought, given the context, but once a particular context has been renewed and established, those playful touches change meaning and thoughts race.
A pair of hands that feels most yet unfamiliar to me is my mother’s. Her’s tells an entirely different story from my own. They’re rough and calloused to the touch and far larger than mine. Her hands reflect years of hardship in a country that I fear might be estranged from me for a while. Our family used to joke and say that her hands double as a hammer, easily punching pins into solid wood with ease. The last time I held her hand was in church during a prayer, less than a week before I left her home, on Mother’s Day. She held mine back, squeezing it firmly—I felt like her child again. Innocent and unbeknownst to the life outside of playing with dolls and clinging to her side—oh, to rewind time and be back there for just a bit. In hindsight, I knew we had stood there hand in hand for different reasons, but it was nice to know she was there for that moment.
Funnily enough, I wouldn’t say that physical touch would be my number one love language. But it’s up there. Knowing there is so much communicated in the unsaid. That even without the eyes, the windows to the soul, ideas can still be conveyed. However, that one action can be misconstrued and understood completely differently, depending on the context.
Hands; so simple, yet so complex.
