Hand Jive

When my hands wake up, things break

Crystal shattered on the kitchen floor. Brunello pooled.

My hand froze mid-air.

Richard, my husband, noted that my hands move constantly when I tell stories. I didn’t believe him — blissfully unaware they could not remain still when my mouth engaged.

I began paying attention.

Pointing, flapping, sweeping — my hands illustrated my every word. Objects within arm’s reach became unwitting targets.

I examined how this habit started and recalled my mother.

She talked with her hands. When she was younger, her slender fingers curved in artistic waves as she spoke. Her hands eventually thickened and grew calloused. Quieted only when rocking a squirming baby, pinning an unhemmed dress, or holding a frantic chicken, they gave voice to her life on the farm.

When going to church or social clubs, she covered her chipped nails with polish, freeing her to unabashedly tell her stories with hands afloat. But the town ladies’ gossip stung as they snickered behind their manicured hands, “How ethnic!”

In high school, I was fascinated by my gregarious English and theatre teacher, Mr. Hironimus. He was a study in intentional movement. His hands would push back his unruly brown bangs from his round face with a flourish. His arms flung and fingers splayed as he taught.

As my teacher in my sophomore English class, he encouraged creative writing. One assignment involved presenting an original essay based on a famous novel.

At home, tapping my gnawed pencil on college-ruled paper, I felt my mind sputtering for ideas.

My mother frequently told me that most people approached things the same way. “Think the opposite, Wendy,” she would say. “That’s where creativity starts.”

A crimson cardinal, perched on a gnarly walnut tree limb, chirped outside my bedroom window. Birds! That was it! In Moby Dick, Herman Melville used the great white albatross as an image of grace and awe that also evoked dread.

My heart jumped. Instead of writing my Moby Dick essay from my viewpoint, I could switch it to that of an albatross! Albie.

I wrote enthusiastically, fascinated by this bird, learning that although the albatross stumbles with its oversized feet on solid ground, it also gracefully glides hundreds of miles on its massive wings.

I trembled with excitement as I imagined how amazed Mr. Hironimus and my classmates would be!

The day of our presentations arrived, and I had the last slot. When Mr. Hironimus called me, my knees wobbled as I rose out of my chair.

I made my way to the lectern. Looking out, one classmate yawned. Another shot rubber bands at the back of a popular cheerleader. Several furtively glanced at the ticking wall clock, waiting for class to end.

Taking a deep breath, I started speaking slowly, my mouth dry and voice quivering.

My hands woke up. They floated in the air. They paused as Albie searched for krill. They dove as he plunged to the sea.

My voice grew louder. “I floated like a paper airplane gliding on a sea breeze. From above, I saw a vessel with a mast as thick as a tree. I spied a bleached ship passing another. I heard nothing. Returning home, I lumbered onto the rocky shore to learn what had become of my waiting flock.”

And my last line. “And I walked like this.”

Emerging from behind the lectern, tucking my hands under my armpits, I crouched to the floor. And duck walked. Flapping my elbows and pushing out my neck, I staggered through my version of an albatross amble.

Mr. Hironimus’s cherubic face stiffened. I looked up to see my classmates’ eyes fixed on me. Jaws dropped. Eyes opened wide. Hands pointed. Laughter echoed off the room’s cinderblock walls.

I stood up, feeling faint. My cheeks burned as I grabbed my notes. I sank into my desk chair just as the bell rang.

Mr. Hironimus rose from his desk. “Before you go, class, I just want to say, in all my years of teaching, I’ve never seen such a, er … creative, brave reading.”

He looked at me, hand to his lip, and smiled.

Now, many years later, I picture my mother’s work-battered hand gesturing as she held her coffee cup with the other. I notice Richard stepping back, just a bit, when I start a story — glass isn’t the only thing I’ve broken.

But my errant hands also developed into skilled instruments in my profession as a hospice physician. They unearthed unsolved mysteries of the body. They recounted patients’ histories. They mended torn tissue.

And at times, in a solemn bedside moment when nothing more could be done, my hands cradled the stillness, as they had my mother’s the morning she passed.

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