Mommy's Hands Weren't Always Gentle...

Shameful Admission #1: I'm a little vain about the condition of the skin on my face. I've always been paranoid about sun exposure: I have worn sunscreen on my face every single day since the late 80's. And maybe I have some "crinkling" now around the eyes, but it's only when I smile so I think that's allowed. I'm just asking for trouble by admitting to this vanity: Surely it will be undone for me by a freak accident or severe yet unexplained decline in my skin condition in the near future.

Shameful Admission #2: If only I could take the same pride in the condition of my poor, poor hands. Oh sure, if you don't look too close I've still got my long pianist's fingers, but a real examination reveals scaly skin, cracked cuticles, and veins. Oh, the veins. No pictures, here, it would be too horrifying. On second thought, maybe I'll send a picture to one of those medical poster companies- you know the ones you see in the doctor's office showing horrible skin conditions and you don't want to study it but you can't help yourself and wind up with your nose pressed against it thinking, "Holy ****! I had no idea eczema could get so awful!" I have a little piano student who does her own "nose pressing" to my hands every week- she'll lightly touch a poking out vein, then she'll press that same little spot down a little more firmly, then she'll run her finger along the whole vein in a futile attempt to get it to stay down, and all the while I'm thinking, "That totally won't do anything. Want to know how I know? Because I have tried that exact thing a MILLION ZILLION times."

I blame housewifery. Canning especially. I spend every fall with my hands submerged in ice-cold or boiling water, or getting sliced, or shaving little bits of skin off with my peeler, or washing them 100 times a day, and then I still have my usual chores and the havoc that those wreak. I can't stand rubber gloves either- I feel so confined, and then my hands stink, and the gloves have that weird powder in them.

And as a result, a gentle mother's caress from me to my children feels more like a pass with a kitten's tongue or 30 grit sandpaper.

So, is all my domestic success worth it if it causes me to have hands that look like Ma Ingalls'? Because inside I'm totally Arianna Huffington but the outside package just doesn't appear that way.