Man-hands

I'm not sure where this new insult has come from. I am guessing from some teen movie. I have never been accused of this offense by anyone; no one has ever said those specific words to me. But in my own head, as I looked down at my own, I would sometimes hear "those are man-hands."

Actually I have my mother's hands. I have always looked at her hands and thought of them as capable and strong. No shiny colored polish, just an occasional use of hand cream, nails kept short by clipping. No fuss hands. Get down to business hands. Functional hands. Her hands make wonderful bread nowadays (not the lead-weight stuff I mentioned in an earlier post) and make the very best blueberry cobbler. Those hands take great care of my sister and dad, and have helped me many times with tasks at my business. And when my mom gets a bit excited, those hands help her express herself with flourish.

So how did I end up with low-hand-esteem? My hands have worked at many tasks competently - computer networking, emailing, proposal preparing, sales pitch demonstrating, creating beautiful things, making diagrams of the beautiful ideas to be created, organizing, washing, carrying, greeting, embracing an overly satisfied client. My hands are good hands. My hands are good in the same way my mom's hands are good.

But after all that work, my hands were very tired looking. When I looked down, I saw broken and chipped nails, hangnails, nicks, cuts, and chapped skin. Thus, my square strong hands began to look much like my husband's.

It didn't bother me at first. But the more I worked with my hands, the more I looked upon them with pity. A sad reflection of my inner exhaustion.

I started with a few small changes like drinking more water so my skin wouldn't be so taunt and wrinkled. I started putting lotion on them each morning, hoping to revive them. Then I upgraded to using my super-rich face cream on my hands, saying to myself "those hands work hard - they deserve it!" At Christmas, I splurged and bought myself some smell-good, feel-good hand creme to keep in my purse and use any time of the day, not just in the mornings.

Most recently, at one of the few remaining bastions of feminity, the beauty salon, I got a manicure. Out of all the services available there, this one seems to be the least complicated. No coloring additives, no curling iron, no spa chair. Just me and Cindy, whose real name is Conluy, holding hands. Under a bright light she inspected my hands, still in desperate need of refinement. She proceeded through each step very precisely. Remove polish briskly. File and shape each nail, then buff. Soak hands in softening agent. Paint cuticle oil on each nail. Trim hangnails from cuticles carefully. She was not so business-like to be unsocial, though. Alternating with asking me a few small-talk type questions, she spoke in her native language with her fellow polishers, heavily punctuated with giggling and laughing. I felt like I was a member of a private girls-only world.

Then the hand massage. Mmmmmmmm. I am fairly certain they do not use high quality hand lotion at nail salons, but I didn't care. The rubbing, wrist-rotating, shaking and slathing process seems to smooth my cares away. And just as quickly as I was lulled into relaxation, her instruction "wash hands now" snaps me back to attention.

I return to her station and now the artistry begins. I get a french maincure which basically means I have someone paint my nails to resemble healthy pink nail beds with clean white tips. As the painting starts, Cindy's focus becomes very intense. After coating my fingertips with an excess of white paint, she uses a specially-shaped paintbrush dipped in polish remover to take away just enough paint to leave beautiful gleaming moon slivers at the ends of my fingers. After some clear pinkish nail polish resembling melted pink jello and a top coat, Cindy sends me to the special dryer.

In this rush-rush world of back-to-back appointments and overscheduling, it feels like a decadent luxury to sit for ten minutes under a nail dryer doing nothing but drying. I almost feel guilty, except that I am still reminiscing over the process, the hand massage, the delicate brush strokes and the transformation.

When my time is up, I remove my newly painted nails from the dryer. Presto! No more man-hands. Those are my hands. Those are pretty hands. Those are strong and pretty hands.