Hands Have No Tears to Flow

"Hands have no tears to flow."

~Dylan Thomas, "The Hand That Signed the Paper"

I bore my first hand tawsing last night. Three strokes to the right, three strokes to the left. I am dizzy with thinking about it, even as I write with those same hands. I feel fortunate that I have this record of the event on film. The memory itself is blurred at best, a mix of emotion more than pain, and more words than emotion at that, though sometimes, like last night, there are no words more emotional than, "My hands."

The last words I remember saying to Mr. Williams before the tawsing began were, "But they're my hands." It wasn't scripted, it wasn't planned. The tawsing was planned. I even remember the night in early winter that I told him I wanted him to use our new tawse on my hands. It was another way of telling him I love him, another way of giving myself and of going ever farther into this journey we've embarked upon together.

Even so, I'm not surprised it took us months to get here. We have sometimes spoken of those parts of ourselves we could not live without, and I have always said I could not exist without my hands. For this reason I have been fascinated by tales of amputation, from Titus Andronicus to Boxing Helena. I can live if I cannot run. I can live if I cannot speak. I can live if I cannot hear morning's birdsong or see its early light. I cannot live if I cannot write. My hands are my strength and my courage; my sorrow, my joy. The thought of losing them is unbearable. If I lost them, how could I tell you how it feels? How anything feels? My hands have words that I do not.

Just before the tawsing began, I thought to myself, "They look like good strong hands, don't they?" These were the words of the Rockbiter in The Neverending Story, after the Nothing comes, after he opens his palms and realizes he has lost those he was trying to keep safe in his grasp. I opened my palms and realized how vulnerable I was, that I have offered my heart perhaps a thousand times, but this was the first time I had dared to offer my hands. Hands may have no tears to flow, but how I could I describe the tears that do flow without them?

I didn't think words after that. I know I screamed. I know a small blister was raised on my left hand. I know my hands didn't hurt by the end of the punishment that came afterwards, that the pain was immediate and fleeting, so unlike the discipline that was admistered to my bottom, which left me sitting uncomfortably today. Still, I look down at my hands now, comfortable and nimble on the keyboard, and appreciate them so much more than I did before I knew how it felt to have them taken, even ever so briefly, away from me.

....And to think, my hands and this camera angle are only the beginning.