Wednesday, January 25, 2006

hands

What stories do your hands tell?

--My hands are like my father's, big palms with long, slender fingers, like a woman's hands, as my mother and other women have said. Perfect for playing the piano, sighs my mother, still wishing that I hadn't quit after three years in middle school. Auntie Lydia says that the length of the fingers and the lack of big protruding knuckles make them women's hands. Uh. Ok.

--My mother calls them, directly translated from Korean, as "spicy hands," because when I playfully hit her on the arm, she says the slaps sting. I laugh, thinking of hands with hot sauce on them. Hand strength is important for volleyball and basketball. A good setter needs strong hands and wrists, although I never set very much. A lot of the power I generated for hitting a volleyball is from my wrist snap and the rigidity of my hands when I make contact. Since my hands don't give in to the contact of the ball, I can deliver more of the force from my arm motion and hip torque to the ball. Which doesn't mean I hit it so hard, compared to others; it's just what happens with me.

--They're really twitchy. I have a lot of nervous energy that comes out of my hands. They're always playing with something: silverware, napkins, cell phone, twirling pens, keys, someone else's ears, etc.

--I tear at the dead skin around the edges of my nails. Some weird kind of compulsion which I started when I was little and noticed that my pruny fingers had white things on them, and I picked at them til they went away. The skin on my fingertips got so sensitive that during one of my first sports camps, the rubber of the outdoor basketballs ripped away the skin, so I had 8 little cuts on all of my fingers, excepting the thumbs. I kept picking at them, of course, enjoying the pain a little.

--I had scabs from tennis, on the base segment of my fingers, from gripping the racket. I get contact blisters from baseball bats in the thick fleshy part of palm closest to the wrist, because my hands overlap the knob. I have to switch-hit so I can sort of evenly distribute the blisters onto both hands, so I can go longer before I have to stop.

--I crack my knuckles a lot. Nervous energy again. I was really happy to hear that cracking them isn't bad for you.

--I used to punch walls when I did poorly on a test. This only really happened in college, when it started happening so often. I dunno. I wasn't really angry at the wall, obviously, just mad with myself, and so I punished myself by scratching up my knuckles. Sort of melodramatic, but I wasn't the most mature kid when I was 19, either.

--I've never punched anybody, except for in the arm, never in earnest in a fight. Although I've wanted to.

--I remember during the exchange of the sign of peace during Mass, I would crush Ed's hands in a handshake. I don't do that anymore.

--I want to be able to use my left hand better. I'm righthanded, but I like trying to be ambidextrous. Maybe tied into my desire to be well-rounded. I've tried to use my left hand in basketball, especially on layups and such, and to use it to block shots, not always relying on my dominant hand. Ambidexterity can translate to defense as well as on offense. I hit switch for baseball, I've tried throwing baseballs, footballs, and Frisbees with my off hand. It's not always pretty, but it's an interesting enough experiment to try.

Tuesday, January 17, 2006

waking up

I get tired of the Hollywood cliche of waking up with a start, sweating and naked in bed. First of all, I never sleep naked. Gross. Second, I've never woken up by sitting straight up in bed, even before my back got bad. So, instead of being part of the problem, here's an attempt to be the solution. Also, just to prove that all the time I spend on my laptop is not just organizing my mp3s.
  1. Her eyes popped open, only to immediately be scratched by the accumulated sleep from the long night. She worked for a good minute wiping all of it away, looking like a small child because of the angle her elbows made as she used both hands.
  2. A dull thud echoed within him, and lifted the sleep from his heavy head. He looked at his left hand in time to see the growing bruise; his glasses, book, and cold medicine lay flat on the nightstand, still shaking from the collision.
  3. He touched her hand, and felt the world spin faster, as if to make up for creeping so slowly before. The walls faded into the familiar dull white of his attic bedroom, as he finally heard the blare of his alarm. His body felt painfully cold and uncomfortable as his consciousness slowly warmed up all of the connections to his limbs.
  4. She snapped her phone closed to eliminate the noisy threat of her alarm, gently rolling away from the clamor to seek new comfort on the other side of the bed.
  5. The last thing she remembered was the steadily more violent bump-bump of the train as it entered the mountains. The bumps not only shook the entire car, but were accompanied by thin shrieks and whirls of color. Carefully, unsteadily peeking through her bangs on the safe side of her blankets, the shrieks and whirls magically blurred into her nieces pogosticking up and up and down and down on her bed, teling her that Christmas morning had (technically) arrived.

Monday, January 09, 2006

working progress

If this were a riddle, what would the answer be?


Smaller minds intoxicate themselves
with sweet-smelling trickets and shiny totems.
Poets have leveled forests into dust,
seeking to encompass the mystery in ink.
Artists have hunted to trap the
secret of the universe in canvas, stone, clay.


Men have shed blood in dangerous deeds,
the beauty of countless women has withered into rags,
and the flesh of the young is eager for its embrace,
while the sag of age is heavy with its weight.
The happy skip to its invisible rhythms,
and the sad burn offerings in its memory.
Even the righteous are made haughty bathing in it,
while the stoniest criminal minds turn to tears at its shadow


Creation groans and splits under the strain;
Mountains rise,
Seas quake,
Deserts freeze,
Trees snarl,
Earth swirls,
Winds drown,
Rains blister,
Creatures glow,
Fires soothe
in the wake of its majesty.

A bridegroom's gift to his bride,
made to fill eyes, heart, and soul
with the beauty that
the faceless Lord of the universe
sees reflected from himself
in the shimmer of his beloved.