GIVE ME A HAND

A baby girl's hand is a thing of softness...a dimpled wonder...a question that asks what will this hand do?Will she give someone a hand? A hand up? A hand out? Will she grasp tightly or will her fist rest easy in  a relaxed and slightly open posture? Who will she clap her hands for? What young love will hold her hand first? I remember when Sam and Will were babies...pondering their hands and what future might be formed from their art of living? They are men now. The tiny hand and foot prints are upwards of size 12 and both are busy fashioning lives from their own hands. Stephen and I spent the July 4th weekend with his cousins in Sandwich NH. We went to the family to share our memories of Priscilla and to spread her ashes in some of the places she made her own. It felt good to sift through memories with others who loved her. It felt good to have her slipping through my hands and mingling with the air, catching the wind and being swirled by the water. She's been in a plastic bag since March and now that she has begun to rest on Earth with other bits of bone and shell and sand, something inside me is relaxing. Though the process won't be complete until we go to Marblehead with the boys and unleash her in the town she called home for much of her life...at least the comingling has begun. We shared in dispersing Priscilla's ashes. We celebrated 2 birthdays...Ginny on the 2nd and Ted on the 4th. But the presence of a baby girl made a circle of perfection. I'm awed by how frequently the passing of one loved one occurs in tandem with the birth of another. There is balance...and joy tempers sorrow.
Since the guys went on their big sailing adventure, I've been coming to terms yet again with being a girl. I must be reaping the Karma of being so judgemental of girlness during my younger years because it keeps coming up. This week it was on account of the tractor breaking down. It simply stopped going...no clunk, no big noise, no obvious reason for damage. I had been mowing under the hot sun and the humidity was heavy and oppressive. Stephen told me I could help him. I just cried. Usually when he tells me I'm going to help, it means I do something totally out of my comfort zone. I didn't feel like I'd be much help...and I couldn't see myself getting the tractor into the back of the truck or being much help even to him. I immediately saw my inability...I'm not handy. I am not like Priscilla who set out to meet challenges with an expectation of eventual success. Nope. I am my mother's daughter...and my father's for that matter. Neither one of them were handy. My mother believed changing a lightbulb was a mans job. My Dad was an artist/architect and though he was adept at making plans, he was over his head in the engineering of the follow through. I feel like a miracle worker hanging art work on walls or putting up curtains. Putting a dead tractor on the back of the truck is simply not in my realm of imagination. Stephen is a jack of all trades and he can fix anything. I heard him speak about Priscilla teaching him not to give up on finishing anything he started. I wondered what I'd be like if I was ever told I was perfectly capable of moving heavy things or fixing broken things. I felt myself cave in...feeling overwhelmed by my limitations. I lack courage. Something inside me feels incapable. Instead of being challenged and open to trying...I was giving up before I started and breaking down and crying. Suddenly I knew that my only obstacle to succeeding at fashioning a hand made life full of satisfaction and self made joy is the mantra I've been repeating to myself all my life...I can't. I said it to the midwife as I was laboring to give birth the first time. Yet I did. Plant that whole garden? I can't...and yet I did. Fill up the freezer with homegrown food? I can't...and yet I do. I may not be able to compete with men for certain feats of strength...but I don't have to.  Perhaps the real change here is not in accepting my femaleness...but rather in letting go of the need to prove myself equal when no one but me is questioning that fact. My right hand aches from grasping to tightly. I hold on for dear life...I have a lot of fear in my right hand. I'm afraid I won't measure up...I'm afraid that comparing and contrasting will reveal my ineptness. But I don't have to believe in the voice that tells me to quit before I've even begun. I might feel weak and unsure...but stroking the baby soft hand is giving me a hand...if I think I can't then well...I can. I just need to edit the 't.