hands

i have never liked my hands. i have been trying to make peace with that since i was a little girl.

i know that's an especially silly thing for a woman to say, so typical of early 21st century female insecurities. there's a book called "i feel bad about my neck", so i guess it's chic and accepatable for me to feel bad about my hands.

my mother, my grandmothers, my aunt, my fairy god-mothers, my friends...all of them have beautiful hands. even the men in my life have lovely hands. for the longest time, everytime i looked at my hands, i was disappointed in them, disappointed in myself. my hands were a reflection of what i felt about my whole self...so close to being good, but not actually good, at all. i looked at them and all i could see were the improvements that needed to be made, the things that had slipped through them, the things they had broken that could not be mended, or lost and couldn't be found.

i used to get in so much trouble when i was little for being messy, for losing things, for not keeping track of things, for going too fast and messing things up, for not putting things away. i track it all back to my hands. i have made every effort to put away that messy child, to get all the barbie wash-off nail polish washed off her ragged cuticles. she still peeks out from time to time, and rolls her eyes when i make my bed in the mornings. she also has a real problem with the weekly dusting, almost ritualized in it's pattern every saturday. i suppose there was a time when she was sure that all that activity, all the mess would cover up how she really felt about herself, and her hands. now, i try to clean up all the mess, keep it neat and tidy, so maybe no one will notice that my hands are too big, too hot, too efficient.

i am not one of those people who can just have fun...it makes me feel guilty, and nervous that the bottom is about to fall out. i know, i know, i'm supposed to trust God, my fellow humans, etc. who doesn't have fun, right? here's the thing...i can only let myself have fun and enjoy something if i feel like i'm contributing to society, being taught a lesson, or teaching a lesson. i know, it's sick. this is why (ok, it's one of the reasons why) i see a therapist regularly. anyway, i usually extend the "it's not just a fun ride" principle into my work life, as well. and that is how i ended up with my hands (the hands i cannot make myself learn to like or love) full of mysterious red dirt inside a very small church in an even smaller town in a remote part of new mexico.

i am fascinated by miracles...not just the healings, although they are paramount. i love the stories that go with the miracles. stories about mundane things, ordinary people, every day heartbreak seem to collide with grace, mercy, angels, and (like aeschylus said to agammemnon) the awful grace of God. i had been fascinated by miracle shrines like lourdes, fatima, and chimayo for years before i ever thought about visiting one of the sites. but i found myself organzing a trip for some of the kids i used to work with around chimayo and the santa fe ski area. see...fun and work.

so i took the children skiing. and i took them to the loretto chapel in santa fe. we prayed. we shopped. we ate alot. the kids liked the skiing. they moaned and groaned the day i told them we weren't going up the mountain, we were going around it.

we talked about miracles that day, for a long time. i told them the story of chimayo, which you can read here: http://chimayo.org/history.html they seemed sort of underwhelmed, but were willing to go along with me, because i knew where all the snacks were. we talked about whether we believed in miracles, what constituted a miracle, why miracles do or don't happen depending on the situation, etc. they were smart kids. once we got to the church, the kids were getting quiet, doing their own thinking, preparing themselves to be still and do some thinking. i was very proud of them.

and so, we ended up inside this lovely little church, wandering through, saying our prayers, thinking thoughts to ourself, not really whispering or anything. and all of a sudden, we were in front of this little hole in the ground, full of the most beautiful red dirt i had ever seen. i remember feeling this overwhelming compulsion to put my hands in the dirt and rub it across my palms, through my fingers, up to my wrists, like i was washing my hands. so that's what i did. other pilgrims had brought little baggies or boxes to take home dirt from this little hole. the dirt is supposedly the vehicle of miraculous healings that have taken place at chimayo...healings, pregnancies, relief from pain, etc. the walls of the little room with the little hole are decorated with old crutches, wheels from wheelchairs, pictures of babies. and so there i stood, all of 25 years old, still with so much to learn and see and do, with two handfuls of red dirt, staring blankly at a pair of hands that really no longer looked like mine, no longer looked detestable to me.

i brushed the excess dirt off my hands, put them to my face, and breathed in the earthy aroma of that glorious red dirt. i exited the little room with the little hole, i looked at my palms, and they were glittering...quartz in the dirt...diamond dust...miracles happen every day.

nothing has been the same since. i look at my hands, at what they are doing, and i try to make it good, make it an offering. we have so much to do, and such a little time to do it, and i don't want to be careless with a single minute, don't want to pass up a minute of joy or learning, don't want to miss a sunrise or a sunset because i'm off doing something piddly and small. i don't want to miss doing something incredible because i'm worried about how my hands will look, or what kind of mess might get made.

i look at my hands now, knowing full well there is not a shred of dirt left on them from that early spring day. i think about how the red dirt filled in the lines and rings on my palm and finger tips, and how that moment, staring at my hands, felt like a thousand years, how i could feel the life in the dirt flowing into my hands, getting me ready for something new. if i close my eyes and think of early spring in the mountains, that is what i remember. i know i picked up something important that day. i am still trying to find out how to put it to use.

thanks be to God.

mil besos,

rmg