People Give Me Hands
A Chirophile’s Reflection
People give me hands.
I don’t mean they applaud when I reach a professional goal, or clap when I tell a joke. Not those kinds of hands. Passersby have helped me squeeze into tight parking spaces in downtown Chicago, and friends volunteer to help me pack boxes at moving time, but that’s not what I mean, either. I mean, they literally give me hands—as gifts—and I’m not sure why.
I’m not complaining, exactly. This isn’t one of those holiday rants about people giving me random gifts that aren’t suited for me. No one has given me camping equipment or tickets to sporting events, thank God. But the hands, while unique and always beautiful, indicate a sentiment that is very intimate. The hand is a body part, and a social one, used to touch other hands, shoulders of old friends, fur of soft pets and, furtively, ripe fruit at the super market. Hands are symbols of touch, as hearts are symbols of love. If people gave me hearts, I would know they wanted me to feel love. But hands? I’ll just come out and say it: hands give me the willies.
Last Christmas, I received two of the same henna-handed jewelry holders (they might have been on sale at World Market). My first Christmas with my husband, he brought me a Buddhist lotus-hand statue from Vancouver. One year, a dear friend from New York gave me a solid silver hand pendant necklace back when we were in our twenties and discovering ourselves. I have received at least a dozen, unsolicited hands in my adult life. “I saw this and knew it was for you,” the hand givers have said. But unlike the delight of other collectors I have known — a former neighbor comes to mind with thousands of penguins, including a granite headstone — I feel a jolt of confusion every time I open up a box to find a hand, like I’ve been called on but don’t know the answer.
It’s not like the hands are pointing at me and laughing. They aren’t balled up in fists or giving me the finger, either. But just because they aren’t groping or slapping or singling me out doesn’t mean the hands don’t trigger flashback to hurt. I wonder if people who have survived severe love trauma feel this way about hearts, but probably not. Betrayal happens at the hands of those you trust; their hearts rarely have anything to do with their actions. Disloyal lovers, bullying colleagues, abusive family or friends — often, they say they love you at the same time that they harm you. Was I ever hit? Screwed over? Professionally snubbed? Sure. Did I trust those individuals after the fact? Not entirely. For this reason, I have come to see the hand as a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
And yet, people give me hands out of affection.
If someone asked me if I had chirophobia, I would answer no. But now that I’m a reluctant chirophile, I find myself hiding these hands behind bookshelves or under my nightstand, unable to throw them away because their intent has nothing to do with the dread I feel.
Then, just yesterday, a colleague sent me a gorgeous Hamsa hand from Israel, silver and ornate with decoration and symbolism. She took the time to print out the ancient history of the Hamsa: it is a protective charm in Judaism, Islam, Christianity and even earlier world religions. The five fingers are said to represent the five senses, the five pillars of Islam, the five fingers of Miriam, sister of Moses, and the hand of the Virgin Mary. It is a talisman, a defense against the evil eye in the Middle East and Africa. Hamsa translates as “lit”, as in fire, or guiding, protective light. When I took it out of the organza baggie, this hand was nothing short of transcendent.
I welcomed its message, May you be protected as you touch the world. Most likely, the hands that have come my way have intended to carry some version of this message, too. Friends have been offering me their gift of protection all these years.
This weekend, I will hang this Hamsa on my Christmas tree. Though I’ll still see it as a pulsating complexity between the skunk and the sock monkey, I’ll also take comfort in its shielding blaze.
