Traveling these last couple of months, I guess my hands have been on vacation too. No painting. No building of frames. No baking or lawn mowing. So I decided to give them some extra care. I suppose it was my friend who got it all started by greeting me with the tradition of glove gifting, accompanied by some rose hand lotion, (French of course). They smelled so good, I decided to let my nails grow. I bought the polish and varnish. Took the time to file and cream daily. I even bought the handmade cuticle oil en route in Omaha.
I hadn’t told her about it, but of course she noticed, this glove-gifting friend. The friend who started giving me the gloves each year because that’s what my mother gave to her yearly for Christmas. She said, “You have your mother’s hands.” To be seen, to be known, from acts of kindness down to the shape of a nail — What a gift to be given!
Years ago I painted my grandmother’s hands and gave them to my mother. She passed on that love to me. To my friends, her friends. Hand by hand we can touch each other. Heart by heart, we hold each other, ever.
The amount of reasons not to do it had to be plentiful. It could be too dry. Too wet. Too hot. Not warm enough. The tractor could fail. His body could fail. Grain prices out of his control. And yet, I never heard my grandfather complain.
Sitting on his overalled lap at the card table he only spoke of the current hand he was playing. He and the chosen three adults laughed, accused, pointed, shook heads in knowing victory, slapped losing cards on the table, and kept playing. Oh how they loved to play cards after a full day of farming. And when the sun came up the next day, he walked past the card table, pocketed his pipe, and went to the field that was given, worked it accordingly, without complaint. Each year turning it from brown, to green, to gold.
Yesterday at our family gathering, (a multi-national event), I was speaking with my German niece in English in the French countryside. “I don’t have enough time,” she said. “And I’m sort of afraid,” she continued. “And I could fail…” She offered up reason after reason not to paint, even though she claimed she wanted to. She was looking so far ahead. Beyond canvases painted, sold and shipped. A business created, and what if that failed, all before a brush or tube was even purchased. “You could just paint a picture,” I said. I could hear my grandfather’s voice deep from within.
He never played next year’s hand. He farmed in the day that was given. What a lesson to be learned. I remind myself constantly. Because I, at times, can get way too far ahead of myself as well… with all the what ifs of tomorrow. But really, we only have this day. And I choose to make something of it.
It occurs to me as I’m typing this, the answer to one of her questions. I told her I was working in my favorite palette. Stroke by stroke in these moody, earthly colors. She asked why I loved it. It’s so clear to me today, it’s the hand I was given.
