EDM #10 - Draw Your Hand

Is this really MY hand? Each time I look at this sketch, my impression is that it belongs to someone else. Who? But, it really is my left hand, lying in my lap. The way that the light hit it at the time, the redness of my knuckles and the bumps on my fingers looked unusually pronounced.

It may seem odd, but I like the bumps on the last joints on my fingers. I know what they are - arthritis - a consequence of aging and a manifestation that my body is wearing out in different places. Perhaps others wouldn't find the idea of one's body wearing out a pleasant thought, but I don't find it upsetting at all. I think that is because older people have always been part of my life.

As a child, I lived with my grandparents and my great-grandmother. My aunts were great-aunts and the Wednesday Canasta games were played by women in their 50's, 60's and 70's. The people around me were considerably older than my parents would have been if I had lived with them. My great-aunt was the person who took me on the train to Baltimore to shop for winter coats. It was her gnarled hands that knitted the Christmas stocking that my grandson now uses.

When I was ill with a variety of childhood diseases that seemed to come one after the other, it was my great grandmother who took care of me. Her hands were narrow with prominent veins showing through the thin, pale skin. I remember that I loved to touch her hands, look at the lines on her palms, and wonder what all the lines meant. I worried that her "life-line" was fractured at several places - I depended on her to be there when I needed her, when I wanted answers to questions about the past - and the future. I was fearful that any event would shorten her life and separate us. As a little girl, I hoped that one day my hands would look like Nanny's.

The sketch I have done of my hand is far from perfect, or even accurate. The joint from my hand to the first knuckle is too long and changes the proportion of the sketch. I didn't put in any background to place my hand somewhere in space. I didn't take time to make the bright orange "Medic Alert" bracelet rest on my wrist, instead it looks like more of an orange handcuff added as an afterthought. It doesn't look much like Nanny's hand, or my grandmother's hand. Rather, it reminds me of someone else's hand, someone closer - my mother.

I recall often looking at her hands during the last few years of her life. They didn't show many of the usual signs of age even in her late 70's. Yes, the skin was thinner, the veins a bit more prominent, the lines on her palms a little deeper - and there was even a bump or two on some of her fingers.

Is that really MY hand, my left hand? Maybe. I'm not certain...could it be my mother's?

(This sketch is in a 5"x8" Moleskine notebook, done in pencil with a touch of watercolor paint.)