Do you remember the last time you gave your opposable thumbs the day off? I mean really… Think about it. What are your thumbs doing right now? In five minutes? Same goes for the other eight fingers doing their thing at the end of your arms…
My hands hurt. My thumbs are not happy. Like numberless others who have made a living doing a lot of “sis-boom-bah” with their fingers and hands, things wear out, get crunchy, puffy and need extra love. Oh let me count the ways.
Like this one: Motion is the lotion. That’s the new headline in my life. I’ve always enjoyed doing hand and finger exercises…well, when I feel like it. But once-in-a-while doesn’t cut it anymore. This is getting serious and I want to keep playing the ukulele, tap-tap-tapping on my computer keyboard and…and…and…for as long as I can.
Which brings me to the topic for today, what magician Johnny Ace Palmer calls The Finger Peel.
Here we are, performing at a recent variety show. Johnny has just wowed the audience with his very impressive magic tricks and I have the dubious honor of following him with ukulele singalongs and kazoo tooting. So now we are both decompressing in a cluttered side room off the stage as the final singer begins his set and we talk…about…what else…finger dexterity. That’s when Johnny shows me this finger exercise and gives me permission to video him in action.
I am witnessing real magic here. It’s like each finger has its own operating system with belts and pulleys, and get this, can work in concert with other fingers AND independently too. Believe me, I am not interested in yanking a rabbit out of a hat, but his mastery is mind-boggling. It takes time (like years…decades) to develop and maintain that level of dexterity.
So of course I try to do this finger peel too…with comical results. My fingers turn into slender cylinders of cement and I notice immediately how much tension I carry in my hands. “Take a deep breath, Cali. Imagine these fingers are made of rolled up Kleenex, instead of squishy tendons, bones and goop. Come on, try again.”
Learning to play a musical instrument works our brains, tugs at our hearts and pushes our bodies…sometimes out of their comfort zone. We are learning a whole new vocabulary of physical movements. And dexterity happens. Just do “it” again. Whatever “it” is. Hundreds and hundreds of times and finger exercises are a musical part of that “circle of life.”
So I take Johnny’s speed-of-light finger peel, slow it WAY down and just for fun, throw in some variations. The peel reminds me that the fingers on my left hand don’t work the same way as the ones on my right. So get over it. The peel shows me tension happens but there is a way to work with it. The peel teaches me what “effortless effort” feels like – for a few seconds at least.
Now don’t laugh, but it also feels like my fingers are sending me little thank you notes. An “aah” here, another “ooo” there, as if they are saying “well finally you are giving us some attention…and grace.
I do regular maintenance on my eight-year-old Hyundai Elantra. Oil changes, new filters, brakes, tires. Maybe someday I’ll trade it in for something else…or maybe not. But I only have one body, this body. It’s a life-long commitment.
So today let’s create a thing, a moment, that is beautiful. Hand Made. Heart Made. And take care. As violinist Itzhak Perlman reminds us “find out how much music you can still make with what you have left.”
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