On Your Hands

I watch your hands more than you realise. Your face has learned to behave. You arrange it before you come to me, and it says what you have decided it should say. Your hands have not had that training. They tell me the truth while the rest of you is still composing a sentence.

When you are nervous they look for something to do. They straighten a cuff that does not need straightening, they find your phone, they rub the same place on your knee until I wonder whether you know you are doing it. You do not. That is why I notice.

So I give them something to do instead. I tell you where to put them and how to hold them, and I watch what happens to the rest of you when they are still. Most men find it harder than they expect. Keeping your hands quiet for a few minutes asks for a kind of attention you rarely give anything. It asks you to stop fidgeting your way out of the moment and simply be in it.

And then, slowly, the rest of you follows. Your breathing settles. Your shoulders come down. The sentence you were rehearsing stops mattering, because you are no longer performing calm. You are calm, and the place it started was your hands.

I do not ask this to make you uncomfortable. I ask it because stillness is a gift you can only give on purpose. Anyone can be restless. Choosing to be still because I asked is a small, real act of trust, and it is one I see every time.

Next time you catch your hands looking for something to do, put them where you know I would want them. I will not be there to see it. You will know, and that is enough.