I've been looking at my hands this morning. I like my hands. They are not pretty hands. I don't use lotion enough and I spend too much time outdoors. They are filled with scars and marks that when I trace them can bring a flood of memories. My nails are short, but look long due to my long nail beds. I've just had a manicure, so it's not apparent that I chew both my nails and my cuticles. My nails are "Chick Flick Cherry", the perfect color of red. I like the way it sets off my jewelery. I wear a gold wedding band and my 3-stone anniversary ring on my left hand; my sapphire and diamond engagement ring on my right. My veins stand out because my blood pressure is high and my skin is thinning. I used to sit on my great grandfather's lap and push on his veins, pull on his skin. I both love and am traumatized by this comparison. It means I'm getting old.

I have a wart on the inside of my left wrist and the remnants of an allergic reaction to a cheap watch I've been wearing underneath. There's a large liver spot at the base of my left hand where the hand bones connect with the wrist bones. It reminds me of my great-grandmother, whose hands were always cool and smooth and freckled, even though she did where gloves every day. I have a scar that's about an inch long and goes perfectly straight up and down in the middle of that hand. It's from a very brief fling with self mutilation in Jr. High. I did it with a sewing needle while I was watching TV. It got infected and the doctor yelled at me. Above it is an oval shaped scar where my uncle burned me with a cigarette when I was four. He didn't mean to. It happened in the car at Paradise Beach. It was a station wagon. In the crease of my ring finger there's the scar of how I cut myself making stew. I couldn't get the carrot to cut so I tried to break it, forgetting to take the very sharp knife out of my hand. I saw bone on that one and almost passed out. I was at Ray's house and it was 4th of July. We had to drive all the way to my Mom's house to get the insurance forms so I could have stitches. She was very unpleased when I did not return home with her. We actually at the stew and it was very good. I took the stitches out in my boarding house bedroom in Lansing. There are a series of faded scars that go from the top of my pinkie finger to the wrist that I got playing chicken with a boy when I was about thirteen. I didn't know how to get out of it so I turned my front bike wheel into his back one and went sailing. I think I passed out for a while. I remember having to wear a sling to Chorus. My index finger on the left hand is double jointed.

My right hand has the more dramatic scars, but fewer. On the knuckle of my thumb is a scar that, supposedly, is from my having sucked that thumb till I was nine. I don't remember. It's just always been there. There are a series of scars I got while changing a record in the third grade. The record had skipped and I had turned quickly to fix it, catching my hand on the unfinished glass mirror next to it. The largest scar is a circle that is almost an inch in diameter. It should have had stitches, but we didn't have good insurance at the time and lived far from any hospital. I remember Mom took me to the fire station and they told her it would be fine. I remember when I did it, my Dad was talking on the phone with his mother while I was standing in the kitchen bloodying a dishtowel. My ring finger of the right hand is flattened and wide at the tip from my having fallen while returning an 8-pack of Pepsi bottles during an ice storm. The finger got smashed between two bottles. My first broken bone and there was nothing anyone could do. Hurt like hell. The nail turned purple and I spent many a study hall scraping dried blood from beneath it until it finally came off. That was in high school ~ I think I was a senior.

My palms are calloused because I use my hands. I've never liked the feel of gloves while I'm working and usually end up taking them off halfway through any job. I still have the callous I've built up under my wedding ring from lifting weights. You'd think that would be gone by now. My hands are larger than most men I know. They are not pretty hands but they are sturdy and serve me well.