OMG, My Hands

DC, Hirshhorn Sculpture Garden

The spots appear like little continents on the back of my hand.

“Age spots,” Kelsey calls them.

  “No,” I respond, “I can’t be old enough to have age spots!”

  Hmmm, well, maybe I am. Perhaps there’s another way of looking at them; I will think of them as continents filled with tiny beings doing things that only very, very small beings might do. I’m sure they are concerned when their continent begins to fade, or another continent erupts into life nearby theirs.

  Is the threat of rain or sunshine a bad thing or a good thing? I imagine they must have tiny beings whose only job is to forecast things like that…maybe based on the things my hands have recently done. What do they think if their entire continent is suddenly drenched in CBD lotion? What do they do if they sense their continent is fading away toward nothing?

  Perhaps they build tiny ship-like craft and prepare to move to a new continent should theirs fade too much. I imagine that at some point they would sound the alarm, jump into their ready craft and head for a new continent and home.

  Of course, they wouldn’t know where to go if they didn’t have scouts. I’m imagining some very tiny, very brave beings, the most adventurous on the continent, are the ones who become scouts. They train hard because their role is important, nay, critical! They must find and investigate new eruptions as potential home spots for their current population. Once in a while, I can see the scouts. If they stop on their journeys long enough in one place, they appear as small freckles. Sensing danger from inactivity, they disappear after a day or two and continue their search.

  When the evacuation alarm sounds on a disappearing continent, all of my tiny beings clamber onto their craft and head for the newest continent. There is a frenzy of action as the teeny craft motor on to the newly discovered continent. They quickly populate their new land and I can tell they are present and happy as the land reddens around their growing population. Sometimes I wonder if the scouts don’t actually create the continent themselves. I imagine that if they are cruising hither and yon on my hand and find nothing new, they all gather in one place and poof, a new continent!

I’m guessing only one set of tiny beings exist on my hand and the continents thereon. I mean if different types of tiny beings lived on the continents, they’d always be fighting for space and dominance and I’d have scratches, bumps, and scabs.

So…age spots. No, dear Kelsey. Not age spots but exciting life that roars and laughs and races about with derring-do. I mean, after all, they are my hands.