Old Hands

Is there anything better than the impending dusk and ensuing night after a hot August day? You know the kind, when the sun drops and the temperature follows suit by being warm enough to be out in shorts, but cool enough that a sweatshirt will ward off any chill.

Night lights power on and the evening takes on a magical hilt to it. I think it might have something to do with the fact that it still feels like a beautiful summer day, but God turned the lights off and slowed everything down.

Last night, I hopped in my car at dusk and set off to vacuum and detail the inside of my car. A little difficult in the dark, but it was nice. Quiet. Nickelback played on the stereo as I pulled up to the Self-Care Car Place. I opened all the car doors, rolled down the windows, stored everything that wasn't to be sucked up into the powerful vacuum in the trunk, and then set off to go and change my paper money into coin money. Something I've done hundreds of times, at the same location, since the day I purchased my first car.

You know, it suddenly occurs to me that, though the car has changed, they've all been the same damn color! What the hell? It's not even a good color. I drive this gray/mauvey thing that looks like a Grandma car. *sigh* I digress, but... damn it! My next car is going to be Fire Engine Red, I swear.

I took my dollar bill and raised it to the slot to feed it in and looked at my hands. I've done it so many times before and I knew what the image was supposed to look like. Smooth, white hands with little veins showing through the thin skin. Painted nails. It was all familiar, but this time the signs of how much time has passed since the first time I slid that dollar bill in were clearly evident in the light. Wrinkle lines from years of use were etched in the white light of the bulbs.

I've always loved my hands. The way they look with long, slender fingers I inherited from one side of the family. The fact that you can line up my sisters hands, my nieces and nephews hands, my daughter's hands... and they are the same. They look the same. The DNA gene so strong that, with the exception of differences in choices, you could trade them out without too much concern that they wouldn't fit your own body. I even love the scars they carry, the memories of obtaining them clearly etched in my brain.

When Short Person was born a friend of mine suggested that I find a toy that I could photograph her against to show the passage of time and her growth. A visual measurement tool, if you will. As odd as it seems, my memory seems to hold that same measurement tool where my hands are concerned. Where have the past 20 years gone?

When did I get so old? When did my hands get so old?