The Hand
An unseen Hand at my back, telling me “go this way.” My mind wants me to turn back, go another way, follow the plan, don’t step out of the lines, don’t veer into unknown territory. But the Hand at my back applies pressure—subtle, loving, reassuring, urging pressure.
Go this way.
That day—It’s already nineteen years ago—when we hugged good-bye and kept hugging, I felt the Hand on my back. Your hand, yes, your scent, your warmth, your loving, quiet presence, but also the Hand.
Go this way.
I didn’t want to leave. I can’t remember now why my head was so insistent that I had to leave. I just know I drove home in a fog, literally, but also that distracted state of mind of being pulled in two opposing directions, feeling your hug, still heading home. I remember realizing I’d just crossed a flashing railroad crossing, the kind on some winding two-lane roads around here where there is no gate that comes down. Just sailed over the crossing in a fog, my head still in the hug, torn, as I hurtled in the wrong direction.
Nineteen years later, I am married to you, and we are working this place, the place where we hugged, together, stewarding a piece of land that informs our every decision. The unseen Hand knew. It had my back and it had my best interests and my fate. All I had to do was leap. Although I went home, I reached out to you later. The timing seemed fine, then hard, but in the end, strands of our lives had to unfurl, untangle and realign in an orderly weave that now holds us together.
*****
Deciding on colleges, the one thing I knew was that I had to go to Boston.
Go this way.
Had I been to Boston? Did I know Boston? Was there something I wanted to revisit? No, it was just that kindly but definite pressure on my back, a yearning for something I’d never had (Is that possible? How can you yearn for something you’ve never had?) I went to Boston.
I acted out my emotional orphanhood by sleeping in someone else’s bed that first night in the tall dorm on Commonwealth Avenue. We went out for some years before he stopped accepting my infidelities, but we remained musical collaborators and partners over a decade. All these years later, he brings his family to stay at our camps for their summer vacation.
The manager of the health food store where I started my tour of working at every natural foods store in the Greater Boston area is still my best friend some 45 years later. The same goes for some of the work crew from the Kenmore Square deli and pizza shop where I worked after I dropped out of school.
****
My recovery began with The Hand at my back, which turned me toward the phone and opened the phonebook to the page and dialed the number, while my mind spun out of control, panicked and desperate.
****
But not all the leaps are huge and life-altering. The Hand can guide me in making a decision about something minor—which route to take somewhere, whether to bring that extra twenty, when to make the phone call, how to prioritize my to-do list. I just wait and feel for that pressure on my back.
Go this way.
I am the opposite of a planner in that way. I am a listener within, a feeler of pressures, a sensor of pull. Sometimes it works out. Sometimes the rain falls and I am caught without a hood to pull up. Sometimes the volunteer position, the visit, the social occasion are giant pains in the ass, and I wonder if I should trust the Hand.
Then there will be a moment that transforms all the hassle into something worthwhile and good. The heartfelt thank-you when I am the only one who shows up. Being the silent beneficiary of a witnessed kindness exchanged between two other people. The chance encounter so mundane I almost don’t notice it, until, as they walk away, I receive a knowing that they are carrying a big burden, and I know I have been kind.
When I choose to ignore what feels like a push, I can still benefit, noticing whether my being expands or contracts. Is either inspired or disappointed. Is fulfilled or left wanting.
And even then there is a gift, if I want it. If I can accept that I am too lazy, tired or afraid to leap into the unknown, I can practice self-compassion and tell myself something good. There will be another chance. The Universe doesn’t put limits on chances.
I haven’t any proof at all of this. It’s something I choose to believe. Maybe I’m too easy on myself.
Or maybe it’s okay, and everything is as it should be for right now.
****
In writing the essay I thought was going to be this week’s essay, I kept feeling for the Hand, and while I waited, I wrote and wrote and wrote. The more I wrote, the more adrift I felt. I found myself questioning everything. Maybe I have nothing to say. Maybe this is silly and self-indulgent and nobody cares. Maybe it’s hopeless.
If it’s hopeless, then yay. I don’t have to waste another minute making something from nothing and hoping it saves the world.
Also, if it’s hopeless I can just offer you this small thing I made and thank you for your attention and presence and we can both move on.
The Voice and The Hat
Back in the ‘90s in Boston, I was a member of a songwriters’ group. We called ourselves the Songos. Many wonderful songwriters in the Boston and Cambridge folk scene attended week after week. And some people just came once, dropped a song and never came again. We had two rules. Bring in something new each week, and don’t apologize—Just play the song.
Eventually, one of us, I think it was David Goldfinger, who had a wicked sense of humor, made The Hat. It was a floppy old fedora with a pile of fake dog poo glued on top and a couple of fake flies on springs coming out of the dog poo. Around the band, below the crown of the black hat, he had written in white, “worthless piece of shit.”
If someone started to apologize before playing their song, they’d be threatened with having to wear The Hat.
Every once in a while, while I’m struggling to get something out that’s worthy of sharing, I think of the Songos, and I hear a good-natured Voice: Don’t make me make you wear The Hat!
The Voice is also the Hand.
How about it? Do you have the Hand, the Voice, and can you avoid The Hat this week?
All my love,
Phyllis
p.s For my paid subscribers, I am thinking a lot about adding some bonus content involving video. Any requests?
"I haven’t any proof at all of this. It’s something I choose to believe."
Absolutely! Yes! Thanks for posting this, Phyllis. Glad to be along for the ride.😊