Running From the Hands of a Racist

Summary: I sit here writing, day after day, fountain pen in my hand, coffee by my side, and my mind is focused first on whatever I’m writing that morning, whether it be the next chapter in a novel or an essay or notes I need to remind me what I have to do that day. Hardly a day goes by without me sitting at the desk, the first two hours of the morning consumed with writing. Outside of the ink on paper and the diminishing level of coffee in my cup, I don’t tend to notice much else. The only light on is the desk lamp. Sounds of animals at their food bowls are ordinary enough that I don’t give them a second thought. Everything blends into a sort of white noise that settles into the back of my mind, providing a steady, undramatic soundtrack to my steady, undramatic morning. All that is until recently, when I’ve started noticing changes in how my hand looks as it holds the pen. I’ve never had a thick or fleshy hand; they’ve always been thin, like my mother’s and her father’s before her. The blood veins sit high, prominently across the top of my hands, which comes in handy on the rare occasion that I’ve needed an IV placed there. My skeleton has never been especially well hidden and as a result, there’s a certain form I’ve come to expect, a specific silhouette guiding the pen across the notebook. Looking down this morning, though, what I see is different than it was six months ago. My skin sits more loosely over that mix of bone and cartilage. It fits, not like a glove, but like a tailored drape, the line of my fingers curtain-rod-distinct as gravity pulls the fabric of my skin below. There are little lines that almost look like cuts but aren’t. They’re simply the wrinkles of a fabric that is no longer taught and firm. This morning, there’s another scratch, a tear in my fabric. In demanding my attention, one of the dogs has grazed his paw across my skin and caused it to tear. I don’t think this one will leave a scar as others have. I pick up my coffee mug and take a drink. I just refilled it so its weight is slightly heavier. I lift the mug to my mouth and set it down again, no more than a three-second activity, but I see that the mug’s handle has left an indentation in my skin that takes longer to disappear than it did to create. These are all things that didn’t happen before. My hands were never a point of concern. Their appearance has always been unremarkable, but now, every time I look at them for more than a split second, they scream to me, “Be careful, you’re getting old.” The Real Effects Of Living What I’m experiencing is not the least bit unusual. In fact, almost every human over the age of 60 is experiencing some of the same changes in varying quantities based on family history, diet, living conditions, and other mitigating factors. If I bother to turn on the computer, which I am loathed to do as I dislike its light at this sacred hour, I am told that everything I am noticing is perfectly normal and to be expected. The slackness in my skin is caused by a loss of elastin, which is common after surviving this many years. The thinning that seems to make my veins and bones more prominent is caused by the epidermis losing mass. A flattening of the area where the dermis and epidermis come together causes my skin to be more fragile, requiring me to guard against tears and punctures that might not have bothered me before. Thinner blood vessel walls mean I am more easily bruised when I bump into things, even when I don’t realize that I’ve bumped into them. Accenting what I already see is the knowledge of what is coming. Loss of fat below the skin in the cheeks, temples,

Running From the Hands of a Racist

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