Hands

Jan 02, 2025

My best friend told her mother, who’s been sick, to stay away from the light. Things weren’t that close to the end but she thought it wise to put it out there. To her mother. There will be a light, this we know. It will be there and honestly, it’s hard to imagine not going to the light. I for one will definitely rush the light. The first sign of any flicker I will be like, let me at it. I’m one to get through the difficult parts quickly. I want it over with but also, doesn’t the light seem yummy? In the context of the dire roadway at the end it’s sure to dazzle and being me, I’m drawn to that. It is the genius design of the gods, to lure us to them. Such a wonderfully poetic device you’ve created, gods.

‘We could put up a sign?’

‘A sign! How pedestrian!’

‘Or a trap?’ Another god suggested. ‘A covered up hole that they’d step onto and fall into?’

‘Or a falling net?’

‘Oh for heavens sake,’ winked the boss god, the entendre lost on none of them, ‘Treat them like animals and they’ll act like animals.’

‘They are animals,’ the oldest and stodgiest of gods said from his stump.

‘No matter!’ shushed boss god, ‘The decision must be theirs. ‘Right to choose’ to borrow a catchphrase,’ and the gods chuckled and settled. ‘I’ve decided. A simple light in the darkness.’

‘Genius…’ the kiss ass god whispered, as she always did, ‘a flood light of maximum wattage bright and directly in their face!’

‘Hush!’ boss god continued. ‘We aren’t car salesmen! A flicker. Subtle and in the distance. A glimmer that’s almost imperceptible at first, far, far away and it gets oh so slightly brighter.’

And so it was.

I saw the Almodovar, it is absolutely beyond, it is the perfect movie. Tis the season of abundance, there’s a lot out there. I got through Moana II, (major major disappointment), Nosferatu, (a blazing mess of a sinking ship), Wicked (let just say we bought the HD version last night and watched it again), Queer, (ok alright), Dylan, (pretty and forgettable) but then the Almodovar. With Tilda and Jujubee Moore. I can’t remember what it’s called but fuck, it is just perfect. It’s a story about the process of dying, a subject always on my mind. Cheers to each and every one of us who can speak about dying. Almodovar does it in such a frank and honest and upfront way, it’s immediately startling and functionally intuitive. It’s how all difficult conversations should flow, like the ease and the joy of that movie.

I had a boyfriend in San Francisco whose roommates father was struggling with cancer. It was the terminal kind and goddammit, leave it to San Francisco and their progressive burn the trail ethics, the roommates fathers wife drove the father to the middle of the Golden Gate Bridge, pulled over, and let him out. They said their goodbyes, she from the drivers seat and he as he closed the passenger door, then off he went. I mean, why not? It’s where we’re all going, is it so odd that we want to deal with it in tactical and pragmatic gestures?

Jackie Farry has had cancer for so long and I’ve let our friendship lapse. I left her a message yesterday and thought about her through the day. Her voice is a basso, Lauren Hutton or Bette Davis, always on the verge of a chuckle. Jackie was in a cult as a child. Her parents broke up, thought, so she’d do shared custody, back and forth. Because of the share, she didn’t have to shave her head bald like the other children in the cult that her father was a part of did. Because she didn’t live with her father and the cult full time. When she would go and visit, though, the other children, shaved bald, would take Jackie to the mirror and put her long thick hair over their bald heads to see what it was like to have a full head of hair.

My mother’s hands were so old at the end of her life and I look at mine now and I see it. She had these crazy nubs of old callous on her knuckles. It’s not super sexy but my hands are turning into exactly that. I can talk about it, it’s ok, my hands are my dying mother’s hands. It is actually fine. I am playing piano and I am writing and I am gesturing wildly with these hands. They are doing me well.

The same best friend who told her mother stay away from the light… she and my sisters and I do this trick with our old hands. It’s simple, you hold your hands up in the air, above your head, arms straight up for just like 30 seconds. The blood flows out of them and when you look at them after you bring them back down they’re beautiful. I’m not sure why. The skin of the hands is translucent and clear and unwrinkled and like a childs. We like to raise one of our hands so we can compare the beautiful one to the haggard one. Try it.

My hands have been playing piano, my hands will continue to write, my hands are typing right now. My hands are not capable of wrongdoing, my hands only know progress. These hands will hold other hands, these hands will work forward gestures of beauty, these hands will flail and bend at the wrist, these hands are tools of might and power and suggestions of what I do next. These hands are everything and will sweep forcibly doubt aside that lingers. They will fan the air around us and make room for genius. To say, to declare, the hands of mine are genius. You would not believe the beauty that’s been coming from them. These hands can do no wrong.

Talking about death but not death in particular is what I’d like to lead with this year. Frank and open conversation about things difficult and prickly. Good friends appreciate honesty and can hear it. Some friends don’t want to hear maybe, it could perhaps be the type of person. I’ll aim for this directness. Difficult and prickly conversation with people who can listen. Confrontation and button pushers to the front of the line. Mostly it’s still a reaction to the election. Let’s you and I deal with discourse and hear each other, listen to each other, but listen with our hands. Listen with sitting still of course but listening with the proaction of fingers reaching out in anticipation of interlocking and spreading and touching and yes, waving and bringing, with our hands, ourselves to each other.

I wake up to aches in my hands and an itch that resides, residue from inactivity of the stillness of overnight. They are moving now, they’ve woken and want. Let me touch your hands with my hands.

Where does your beauty lie? Who will you touch today? Who did you touch first and did it matter being touched back?

Creation begins today again. It’s a ceremony of the calendar of course but sitting on the edge of this chapter, legs dangling down, ready to slide into it, the course and the motion are a catapult, let it begin. Pleasure me and all of us, let’s speak of what’s to come and what we are capable of. I’ll be the first to say it, I am not capable of fault and wrong. I am moving ahead with it assertively. I do not know apology or ransom or passivity in this realm. I can take us there, join me.

I’ve looked in the mirror, the one I avoid and there it resides. Perfection and joy and accountability. The eye contact with myself. I remember holding this gaze on acid when I was a child. My pupils were enormous and that was part of the fixation but the startling assurance and boldness and confidence changed my life. That connection, fueled by drugs and by the taking of a challenge and a risk, bless it and hold it, it’s here today, today this first day of the year. Bring me favor and bring me what I deserve. Prayers for me and prayers for you.

Big news, New York City. Something new, something challenging and something I haven’t done. I’m going to get on a stage and read words, words that I’ve written. As simple as that and it’s going to resonate. On the 21st of January I’ll join Alex Auder and Lizzy Bougatsos and another guy I don’t know at Tibet House. Please come.

Then again, a reading I am so proud of being a part of. On February 16. My friend Ann does readings at Parkside. It’s a series that I’ve been to often and she and I are going to have a conversation after I read from what I’m putting out next year. It’s story driven and testimonial and I can’t wait to share with you all.