It’s all spinning so fast. So much change, from buying a new house to getting this one ready to sell, to the open house, to waiting for an offer. I haven’t known where to put the needle down between stories to tell you one from the beginning. The needle is too light, the stories so spinny, I can’t get my clumsy, calloused, chapped hands to do anything delicate. They are blue-collar worker bee hands. They are patio laying, prickle ball raking, tile grouting, floor scrubbing, window washing, box moving, bed making, bed remaking, toilet scrubbing, dried out dishpan hands.
My Dad’s Uncle Tom, a farmer in Upstate New York, shook my Dad’s hand to greet him when he flew home to attend a funeral years ago. My Dad worked in hospital administration throughout his Air Force years and beyond. Callouses were not part of the territory. When Tom shook my Dad’s hand, he teased: “What do you do for a living? You obviously don’t work!”
I imagine Uncle Tom’s hands felt like mine do now. But I imagine it didn’t drive Uncle Tom crazy the way it does me. I’m so sensory about my hands, I can’t stand having a dog touch the back of my hand with his wet nose.
I wake up in the morning to sandpaper hands and I can’t touch anything until I apply lotion. Gobs of lotion. Sandpaper hands are to me what nails on a chalkboard are to people who really, really, really can’t stand nails on a chalkboard.
So this is what my brain has come to. I can’t tell you the big picture. My brain is locked onto details. That’s what this has all come to — details. Yesterday, I could tell you all the weird things I thought about while total strangers were scoping out my house, opening drawers and doors, cabinets and closets. (I thought about putting something weird in my closet. Like a skeleton, or a sign in the medicine cabinet that says, My, you’re nosey. Or maybe just a bunch of ping pong balls. So when they open the medicine cabinet, ping pong balls fall out and bounce all over the hardwood floors and every one at the open house knows who had “the balls” to open my medicine cabinet.)
Today, I can only tell you how my hands feel. Come back tomorrow. I have a compelling story about the knots in my right trapezius. You do NOT want to miss that!
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