And yet you do it

By Navya Shukla

And yet you do it 

by third year Ostara Maharaj

After the sun—despite hours of protest—had set on the longest day of summer,

A woman, familiar yet strange, took my hands into hers. 

The lines on her knuckles danced around one another and flowed outward;

it was as though, over time, they had etched a map of the blood running beneath them 

She whispered to me

 “Guess what?” 

The corners of her mouth wiggled with eagerness. I whispered back 

“What?” 

“No one ever taught you that” She replies

I do not know what she is talking about, yet she continues

“No one taught you how to whisper back. How to subdue the low hum in your

throat, to soften the touch of your tongue to your teeth and let the words simply float out of your mouth. Yet you do it.” 

“I guess so” 

“And how about playing with someone's hair? No one taught you where to put your

fingers or how to make them waltz; but you learned how hands simply through hair touch and tingle your whole body. That it makes you feel warm and that you want to share that feeling with someone.”

“I’ve never thought about that” 

“Or how about how to take someone’s hand into yours. Nobody gave you a map

to learn how to melt each finger in between theirs or to allow your thumb to fiddle with its counter. You simply let them fall together. 

I begin to feel confused. She scans my face as though it is a painting in a museum she has visited decades before. Her eyes begin to twinkle, though I cannot tell whether the sparkle will spread to her cheeks as a tear. 

“You are young. You know how to love; how to sway and lean back to the tune of laughter; how to say thank you. What you do not quite know yet is the beauty- with helping hands holding yours - in learning how to do all those things well. To do them fully. Please, child, show the world your heart; for in return it will show you hers.” 

To this day I do not know who the woman was. Though I have a feeling we will meet again.