For as long as I can remember, I have been a hand-talker. Meaning, my hands fly across the space in front of me to emphasize certain points of my story. I clap them together, ball up my fists, and shake them ferociously in front of my face to convey the impatience or unbelief in any given story I may be telling.
I never really notice this habit unless someone points it out mid-conversation, or I see a recording.
There’s not much I can do about it now, it’s a critical part of my storytelling.
And it works.
If I’m telling a really good story, and I mean a show-stoppingly beautiful story, about a date I went on or a chance meeting with my arch nemesis, my hands are going to take on a majority of the weight that the story itself carries.
To my hands, and all the shapes they make, I am thankful.
I’ve taken quite a notice recently about how we use our hands in communication, specifically the pointer finger.
Last Saturday, I spent my afternoon with a baby. I strolled her around their neighborhood with copy and pasted lots that went on for miles. We strolled the sidewalk and watched the flags toss in the wind. I would wave to the couples passing by wondering if I looked the part of a mother and not the babysitter I was.
Throughout our hours together, there was not one word spoken to me. Sure, there were babbles and chirps that would float from the stroller or high chair, but Blair and I had no real form of communication.
Except for the pointer finger.
She pointed at her dog snoring on the couch, the book she wanted to read, and the big green alligator in its pages. She pointed at the clouds floating overhead and the swing she wanted to ride.
Because of that nubby little finger of hers, I knew exactly what she was trying to communicate.
One of my favorite hobbies is people-watching.
I write a lot on here about observations I’ve made through the simple, yet educational, hobby of watching passersby. One day, this love of mine is going to check me with a well-deserved what are you looking at from whoever is unlucky enough to be my source of entertainment, but until that day comes, I will continue observing.
When Lucy and I were in the city a while back, we sat on park benches in front of Washington Square Park’s fountain. It was a warm Halloween and city-dwellers strutted by us, unassuming people watchers, in costumes of all kinds.
It was a light brush with culture shock, coming from the deep south, where Halloween costumes are worn by towheaded blondes whose mothers spent far too much time on Pinterest creating a never-berfore-seen-look that was sure to take Facebook by storm or Greek life swap-goers that excused the wearing of lingerie in public.
So coming to the city on such a day as Halloween and watching neither of the parties listed above enjoy the freedom of becoming something or someone else accounted for some of the best people-watching I’ve ever been apart of.
Lucy and I subtly used our beloved pointer fingers to locate some of the most outlandish costumes in the crowd. We tilted our heads and shot our eyes in a million different directions trying to get the other to see what was only possible in the city.
Pointing is important.
I’ve pointed at the wavy glass in the windows of homes off the square and at the quiet elderly couple sharing a pastry, eager for whoever I may be with to see what I see. And when we share that moment of shock or awe or intrigue, we are connected. What was only mine becomes a shared experience. One that will be recalled over Facetimes or dinner dates with remember whens.
So many times, when writing, I feel like the little one, urgently waving a pointer finger through the air, willing you to look. Or like Lucy, quietly darting her eyes to suggest there might be something worth seeing on the other side of the bench.
See the beauty? See the heartbreak? What could it mean? Come and look for yourself.
I’ve been chewing on this idea for a week now and it has developed into a much firmer belief after the course of the past few days.
Yesterday, I finished reading the last pages of my book in a coffee shop. I’m not normally one for reading in public, but I was tired of my work and it peeked out the side of my purse so convincingly.
The author, Esau McCaulley, pointed me to the stories that make up his life. His relationships and dreams and failures and family are detailed in such a refreshingly honest tone that carries throughout the entirety of the book.
It ends at his dad’s funeral. Their relationship is strained up until the very end when forgiveness nuzzles its way into his heart at just the right time.
Redemption drenched the last few pages and there was nothing I could do but weep at the beauty of it all.
I sat in the coffee shop, surrounded by people who had not been pointed to the realities of his life yet. When I closed the book and wiped the tears, I wished they could see what I had and feel what I did.
I was left better because of his commitment to point to the dark shadowed memories and give them the credit for leading him to the sun-soaked stories that come after.
It is important to point to the moments, as sad as they may be, that need to be remembered, that need to be seen and shared and felt by as many others who are willing to look.
There’s been a John Prine lyric rolling around my mind as I’ve mulled over this idea. It hides at the end of a verse in his song Clay Pigeon and says, “and start talking again when I know what to say.”
Now John Prine is John Prine and I’m just me, but that lyric makes me wonder if there will ever be a time when we’ll know what to say, or have the right words to do so.
I believe that more often than not, words fall short. My sentences let details slip and the end of essays instills a longing to have the words to convey my idea or observation closer to what it really was, but I can’t.
Does this mean I should stop the writing for good or at least until I know just what it is I want to say?
By no means.
I believe when the words fall short, I must go back to what has always worked. To point, with even the shakiest or
smallest of hands, and say look, look at what I’ve seen and heard and known and loved. To hope that somewhere in between my messy, wispy words, an image begins to focus in the mind of every reader and they can finally see what I’ve been so desperately pointing them to all along.