Minnesota Prairie Roots

My not-so-beautiful left hand.

THIS IS THE HAND of a writer. My left hand. I would show you my right hand, too, but I can’t hold my camera and photograph my right hand with my left hand. Never mind.

I’m not showing you my appendage because it’s pretty. It’s not.

It’s really rather ugly. My right hand is worse, with cracks and dried spots of blood edging split skin.

The dry, cold air of winter has been rough on my skin. Cleaning a paintbrush with mineral spirits more than a dozen times during the past two weeks has added to the epidermis damage.

I doubt my hands have looked this bad since I was a child. Back in the day, back on the farm, my hands cracked and bled every winter. That was a result of working in the brutal outdoors, protecting my hands with only a thin pair of brown cotton chore gloves as I fed calves and cows, bedded straw and pushed manure into barn gutters.

Dipping my hands into buckets of hot water to mix milk replacer for the calves temporarily warmed numbed fingers. But it also caused them to chap.

My mom offered a solution: Corn Huskers lotion

Oh, how I detested that slimy, clear gel that she insisted we slather across our skin. I’m not here to endorse or not endorse any hand care products, but this lotion did nothing to improve the condition of my chapped hands.

Only the arrival of warmer weather, of spring, signaled relief from the itching, bleeding and cracking.

So, now, like decades ago, I am awaiting the spring renewal and healing of my hands.

© Copyright 2011 Audrey Kletscher Helbling