My Gardening Hands

by Doug
(Somewhere Out in Lake Ontario)

I'm not sure whether to be pleased or annoyed about this latest development in my somewhat aging body. For over 30 years, I've been in the nursery and gardening business and my hands have reflected this.

They've been cut, nicked, sandpapered and generally abused by tons of soil and tool handles.

I've taken a perverse sense of satisfaction in looking at them and thinking they were "gardener's hands".

Man's hands. Working hands.

So...

Now, I'm a full time writer and only garden a fraction of my time. And my hands are soft. And when I go outside and wreck them in the dirt and muck, they blister and rip and get uncomfortable.

Hey, I'm a guy. I'm not supposed to care about this kind of thing. I'm a nursery guy!

Well, as it turns out, I now have writer's hands and they're kinda soft ones.

But I am getting great feedback from my partner about this. And when your partner speaks, a guy had better listen. :-)

I now have a cupboard full of handcreams to protect my hands from excess water.
I have handcreams to restore my tender skin.
I have creams to take care of the somewhat less than full head of hair I'm sporting and the tender skin exposed therein. (boy does a bald haircut every burn fast if the hat come off) ;-)

I'm learning about skin care.


And my self image is shot all to blazes. But - my partner says I have soft hands and there's a benefit there I must admit.

So my aging body has adopted hand creams and head creams (I think they're really men's face creams but they feel pretty good on my scalp after a shower to remove the day's gardening dirt)

And my self image is never going to be the same.

Writer's hands. Soft.