Last weekend I was in Brisbane for a seminar for work. Two days of lectures, sitting in the one spot for 8 hours a day, and a LOT of information flooding into my brain. Add on the travel and the many, many sleepless nights that preceded and followed, and I can assure you I have spent the vast majority of this weekend asleep.
But while I was away, I was paid an unexpected compliment, which I felt was worthy of a blog post.
I lived in Brisbane for a while a few years ago, and made some wonderful friends there. I miss them dearly and take any opportunity to see them whenever I'm in town - so Friday night I caught up with one of my absolute favourite women in the world for a spot of late-night shopping (ahh, how I love the Queen Street Mall on a Friday night!) and dinner. We shopped, I squealed with delight when I found the Leona Edmiston dress I had been coveting for three months discounted by 50%, with a further 30% off (basically free by my calculations), we ate dinner at a cafe in the mall and listened to some great live music, before we hugged goodbye and went our separate ways. On my way back to the hotel I decided I would drop by the supermarket to pick up some bottles of water ($6/bottle in the minibar was a little too outrageous for my liking), and on my way out of the plaza saw a walk-in massage store.
Now I'm very picky about who I let massage me after the spinal fractures and ever-worsening RA, but I met the therapist and felt instantly at ease. When I explained my 'limits' he not only understood but went one step further, asking which joints were no-go zones today based on pain. Now, without trying to recreate the zen (and a little pain, but the good kind) he managed to unleash, let's just say that while I was incredibly sore beforehand - strange bed, long flight, one day in lectures - I walked out a completely different woman. But before he was done, he massaged my arms (I blame all the computer work I had been doing for making them feel like my bone marrow had expanded... the pain was unlike anything I've experienced before, and I still can't find an accurate way to describe it) and while I thought I may die from the pain, I knew it was doing me the world of good. The most medicinal part of it, however, was not the massage. It was his words, when he uttered "My goodness, you have the most beautiful hands. So elegant, like a musician.".
A long time ago, before all of the pain, before all of the inflammation, before all the medication and doctor's visits and appointments with physiotherapists and massage therapists, I was a violinist, saxophonist and self-taught pianist. My long, slender fingers instinctively found their way around musical instruments as if they had never known any different. To this day, I can hear a piece I once played and my fingers and hands will move - position changes, vibrato and all - through the sheer power of muscle memory.
It's been a long time since anybody called my hands beautiful. Like many others with RA, my hands were among the first joints to experience RA symptoms, and came a very close second to my toes as the visible manifestations of my disease. They are now ravaged by RA, swollen and red, with nodules and with fingers that don't exit the palms at the same angles they once did. My nails are thin and brittle, always cut short to avoid them being long enough to bend and break. The skin on my hands is stretched tight from the swelling, with fissured surfaces where the skin has stretched and torn. I have long looked at my hands and seen ugliness, a visual representation of my pain, and felt a frustration and despair at the things they can no longer do.
But this man took one look at my hands and exclaimed that they were the most beautiful hands he had ever seen. I have spent quite a bit of time since examining my hands, trying to see what he saw. Then it dawned on me. I can't see the beauty that others can see, because I still remember my old, perfect hands. I can, however, appreciate the incredible things that my imperfect hands still achieve on a daily basis. Where once opening a jar was considered pedestrian, now it is a sign that I am still winning. My hands still produce beautiful penmanship (even if the pen has changed), they cook delicious food, they keep my house clean, they care for my fur-child and they help me to apply some artistic flair to my face each day so my best face can be put forward.
To him, my hands were beautiful - to me, they are utterly breathtaking, and I will never stop being amazed.
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| Not my hands, but infinitely incredibly hands nonetheless. |
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