A reflection on the cosmic power of my own two hands
The skin on my grandmother’s hands stood like merengue when I tugged at it. It was a game we played, we would pinch the skin on each other’s hands, shaking it up and down, alternating who put their hands on top. The song that accompanied the game sounded like nonsense, and I never asked her to write down the words for me. My mom says it was sung in Quechua, and she doesn’t know what the words mean either, but she’s pretty sure it was about buying lemons — very good, very juicy lemons.
My grandmother had a cyst on her left arm. It was darker than the rest of her, and rough. She never complained when I would play with it, she would only explain that it was a little bit of gristle and she doesn’t know where it came from.
When my grandmother braided my hair, I felt generations of women guiding her hands. I sat at her feet, my hair filled with knots, tangles, stories, and songs. She would sing to me as she braided, and although her songs didn’t have any words, they smoothed out the course hairs on my head. I inherited her strong, steady hands. I inherited her songs with no words. I would sit proudly at her feet, my hair gathered in a long braid down my back. “Be proud, gran-gran.”, she would remind me.
I was born on a Wednesday morning in June. It was my great-grandmother’s birthday, which is why I insisted on coming out much earlier than either of my parents expected. It was an important birthday, and she was an important woman. I came out with her eyes, and her nose, and her hairline. Her strong eyebrows and stronger personality would develop later.
We are a line of medicine women, all of us combined. The language was lost and what we know exists only in remembered stories and inherited songs. My sister inherited intuition and artistry. I inherited strong hands.
My sister wouldn’t sit to have her hair braided. Her hair is a herd of wild horses running down her shoulders. Her hands are small and smooth, they guide her strong arms and her sharp brain. Just yesterday, my sister spent four hours writing a letter to someone who won’t write back. Last week, she sent a bouquet of desert roses to my mother and spent $40 on express shipping because time is more precious than $40. My sister can speak to animals, she can travel in her dreams, and she gives medicine that doesn’t come in a bottle. My sister gives everything, really. She inherited that, too.
There’s something uniquely challenging about returning to a place you have never been. I was too embarrassed to ask my grandmother questions when she was alive. For no reason at all, I felt like I should know the answers. Maybe I didn’t have the right questions, or maybe it wasn’t the right time. I tried to connect to a hidden past in every way that I could… as long as I didn’t have to ask. What a waste. It seems so silly.
How do I go back to the beginning when I missed the starting line? How do I learn the words to a song that never had words in the first place? Will I ever stop regretting that I didn’t record her singing? Will I ever forgive myself for not recording her stories? What if I’m not enough? Not native enough, latin enough, brown enough, white enough. What if all the stories aren’t true? What if there’s no where to go back to? These aren’t the right questions, but they’re the only ones I can come up with.
I watch Otilia’s hands as she fries turmeric. I try to think of just one more question to ask before I go to sleep, one more excuse to watch the way her thumb curves around the knife. I cry when we leave the lodge in Puerto Maldonado.
“You remind me of my grandmother, and I miss her. She was from Iquitos.”
Otilia looks me in the eyes and takes my thin hands in hers, “I am also from Iquitos. It is good to be a child of la selva.”
I went to Iquitos. I thought I would find answers. You want to know what I learned? There in the Amazon rainforest, alone with only a pencil and my grandmother’s steady hands, I learned one truth. You have all the answers, you already do. You just have to trust yourself enough to listen to them. Everything that has ever been and ever will be is already inside of you, but you won’t trust it. You don’t believe in yourself. You’re asking the wrong questions. You don’t even know your own hands.
My grandmother wore a string of beads around her neck every day. I touch my beads and thank her for my strong hands, my coarse hair, and my pride. Today I will register for a class. Tomorrow I will set up her easel. Yesterday I wrote my sister a letter.
It’s hard to reconnect to a place you’ve never been. It’s hard to learn the words to a song that has no words. But it is good to be a child of la selva, and it is good to have these strong, brown hands.
I was going the wrong way through the middle of the Drake passage when my grandmother passed. I didn’t even know she had been sick. My sister went to the funeral for both of us, filled with love and intuition and guided by her little hands. As she always is.
I think about my grandmother’s strong hands and the way she would braid my hair. I sing her melodies and try to understand the words that aren’t there. We’re a mixture of all these women — coming from the selva with their strong hands and coarse hair, their melodies and stories, their medicine and artistry.
My mom puts cocoa butter on her hands every day. She wants to prevent that skin that sticks up like merengue, she wants to prevent those bits of gristle. It’s too bad, I think. I always loved my grandmother’s hands.
