Junk Drawer

Luna’s newborn hands were tiny and fragile—spindly fingers with ragged, witchy nails—dainty bird claws. Eight months old today, they are pudgy, childlike, sophisticated. Deep dimples in each knuckle and always in action. Nails still vicious no matter how often I cut them. She reaches, pokes, grabs, holds, and is working on a floppy wave—currently only to herself in a mirror.

She holds a piece of food in one hand and pokes it with the index finger of the other, prodding and investigating before shoving the mangled bite into her mouth. She does the same thing with my nipple when I breastfeed. After stretching and kneading my boob skin like a masterful pizza chef, she pokes my nipple down into the dough before slowly lowering her mouth over it to feed.

When not eating her food, she moves it around the tray of her high chair with open palms, squishing it in between her fingers, creating a masterpiece. She constructs a border of food at the lip of the tray and pushes it over the edge when she’s done. She does not do this with my nipples.

She thumps her chest with her fists like a gorilla before stretching her arms out in front of her, making shapes with her hands, turning, flapping, grasping.

She gently scratches her nails against a couch cushion, the changing mat, a cup in the bath, my arm, assessing the texture. Then she stops and rest there—a small, warm handprint on my skin.

When she’s sleepy, she rubs her eyes with droopy fists, not enough energy to keep them tightly balled. She rests her head on her hands as she naps now.

In her hands I see function and personality. Maturity and clumsiness. Sense and nonsense.

They express her needs and her self—curious, silly, hungry, tired, learning and growing all the time.

Soon she’ll learn to clap and point. A little later we’ll hold hands, her warm handprint collapsed in mine. I talk with my hands and wonder if she will too.

They contain her earliest instincts and will take on the complexities of age. Our hands all flailed around like this as we discovered the world.

When she was 20 days old, I tried to preserve her handprint in ink. I believe it was her first traumatic experience. Her hands are not made to stay one way forever. We’ll see what they reach for tomorrow.