My Right Hand

In eighth grade gym class we were all lined up out on the field practicing the long jump. I was a little shorter than my peers, but had powerful legs from years spent as a center midfielder in soccer. I didn't have breasts and my hair never feathered right, but by golly, I could run fast and jump hard. I was in the full glory of my longest long jump ever, arms windmilling, loving every second of it when I realized someone had left the rake at the back of the pit. There's really no way to stop jumping when you've gone that far. I put my hand down to steady my descent and landed with the heel of my hand, followed by the full force of my body in flight, on the rake. I took a second, pulled my hand off of the rake, sat and looked at the giant puncture wound filling with blood and yellow gristle from inside my hand and promptly walked back across the field, into the school to the nurse's office. The nurse took one look and called my dad to take me to the emergency room for a tetanus shot and a butterfly bandage.

At my first post-college job, I worked as an event planner for a catering company. When I got tired of listening to brides and socialites quibble over cash bars or table linens, I would seek comfort in the bustle of the kitchen. The crass and rude chefs would let me help them cook because I wasn't afraid to get dirty and I would do things like roll 2000 raw scallops in bacon. (Do you even know what your hands smell like after that?!) It was my meditation. I could get sweaty and filthy and reek of seafood and grease and not have to mind my manners or sell anything or worry that the china service was all wrong. One day I was pulling a tray of spinach and feta triangles out of the oven and touched the base of my thumb to the oven rack. My rubber glove melted and burned onto my hand. I didn't want the chefs to think I was a wimp, and we had an event to get out the door, so I finished loading up the food before I went to the bathroom to peel off the glove and a layer or two of my skin.

A few years ago while we were camping, I went to retrieve a kite from our giant old Volvo station wagon while my family frolicked in the field several yards away. I watched them wrestle and run and play in the sunshine, completely overtaken in a moment of pure and blessed perfection. I slammed the door on my pinky. Unbelieving, I just yanked my finger out of the door instead of opening it. As I looked at the inside of the tip of my pinky, it occurred to me that I might be hurt, so I did what any rational person would do. I shoved the end of my finger back in place and went to go fly kites with my family. The Chief Lou noticed that I was grayish in the face and that there was blood dripping off my hand and insisted that probably the kite flying could wait.

courtesy of morguefile.com

While I am generally ambidextrous, I favor my right hand. It's my primary writing hand, and its the one I unconsciously turn to in a crisis. It is the hand that's always out there in the forefront of whatever I'm doing. I have a large lumpy scar on the butt of my right hand right where my life and fate lines intersect. I have a dark purple line across the base of my right thumb. I have a Franken-nail on the pinky of my right hand. I have these and countless other scars on my right hand from where it has taken the heat, stopped my fall, and run interference for me when I've operated beyond my limits. My kids like to look at my hand and trace the scars, to hear the stories and to squeal with horror and awe. This hand of mine that's battered and worn will never be used to advertise diamond rings or Palmolive. But it's my primary writing hand. It tells stories. It speaks in twisted lines and singular silhouettes of times I have flown farther, jumped longer, worked harder, and lost myself in the moment like never before. It's my right hand.