Chipped or Polished

Submitted today for later publication on The Hur Herald (www.hurherald.com)

For most of winter and spring, I have beautifully manicured finger and toenails. It’s a layover vanity from my city-slicker days when I worked as a beautician. Why keep toenails that are hidden beneath wool socks all winter? Because I know what is under those socks.

By spring, my nails have grown to their longest, and look their best for the entire year. Then, planting season arrives.

Even the heaviest coat of nail enamel can’t remain flawless if you use your hands and fingers to work the earth. And the enamel will crack and peel after you scrub and scratch the dirt our from beneath your nails. And toenails? That shiny finish just fades away when your feet slip out of your muddy garden clogs and plop right down in the mud.

By the time the vegetable and flower gardens are planted, any resemblance my hands had to those of my pampered city days are long gone.

I don’t recall my grandmother ever wearing nail polish. When I think of her hands, I picture them peeling an apple with a stone-sharpened paring knife. I picture her hands as she sat stringing beans, rolling out noodle dough, stirring a pot with a wooden spoon, washing and drying dishes. I see hard hands guiding quilt patches through a sewing machine.

The nail polish of those days would never have held up through all that anyway. The time spent in water alone would have just eroded such a finish.

Me? I’m half gardener, half desk potato. I dislike gloves and love to feel the dirt break and crumble between my hands, but I also need a clean and polished atmosphere around my computer and paperwork. Sometimes it seems that this is the conflict of my life – the need to have my feet, and hands (polished nails and all) in both worlds.

I can walk out of the garden, take off my work clothes, shower, primp and put on a skirt – and manage the transition from dirt to desktop in a business meeting. But my hands will give me away every time. Spotty polish, scratches, even a chip I haven’t filed out yet – these are the signs that I’m not a polished business woman every day of my life. If it were not for the “fast-dry” nail enamels available today, these hints of my secret life – on hands and knees in the dirt cursing weeds and cavorting with vegetables and flowers – would be constantly exposed.

Run into me during delivery week when I’m also covered head to toe in black ink smudges from handling thousands of issues of Two-Lane Livin’ – and I could look much like a ragamuffin. Black hands, smudged face, blown hair, chipped fingernails, and if it’s raining, muddy shoes. Even our white vehicles are covered in black smudged fingerprints.

Not the perfect picture of a professional, I know.

There’s a saying though, “As is the garden, so is the gardener.” And right now, our garden is more manicured than my nails. My social presentation might be a bit ragged around the edges, but the lettuce bed is beautiful and the tomatoes are in bloom.

And I am realizing a growing admiration for hands that reflect hard work. My grandmother’s hands. My full time gardener friend’s hands, with plain nails cut short and toned muscles that run from the fingertips to the shoulder. Dirty hands covered in grease or mud or any other dark sign of manual labor. Calloused hands that have spent a lifetime mastering a trade. Hands that have spent the day manipulating and creating much more than simple words pecked into a keyboard.

I am learning to respect hands that are dirty, just as much as those that are clean.

                

Lisa Hayes-Minney is publisher of Two-Lane Livin’ magazine, distributed free monthly –  in print to readers in 15 counties of the Central WV Region, and online at www.twolanelivin.com. Advertising information available at www.twolanelivin.com/advertise.