Anice Lucas | My Arms, Your Arms

Each person in my family has arms of varying lengths, but they are arms all the same. Some long, some short, some covered in freckles, others with markings that show age, some scars and summer tans that span into the winter as a result of constant years of working in the sun that beats down heavily during the Midwest summers. All of our arms show some semblance of the kind of paleness one would only ascertain from generations of people who lived in constant rain and cloudy weather. Speeding along on little bonnie boats and eating haggis every other meal.  

My father’s arms, though, are long. Fitting his stature well, they don’t hang past his knees, though somedays he will come home so exhausted that they seem to drag on the floor. His arms are much tanner than his daughters’ though he ventures outside far less often. His arms have lost the paleness that his grandparents and his grandparents’ grandparents passed down to him. But he still holds their histories in little books, in DNA testing, and in a small blue house in Massachusetts that remains untouched by the ravages of time. His arms are large and wide and great for giving hugs although when being hugged by his arms he holds on too tight for too long, like he is afraid of you one day leaving.  

My mother’s arms are pale, they are wide and unadorned by bracelets and jewelry, save for the intricate band that rests on her left-hand ring finger. A combination of two bands once separated and now forged in fire to never break again. Talon like shards come together to hold a precious jewel in the center. Like a dragon, formed in fire, protected in fire, and unmoved for twenty years. They are usually occupied sitting while her hands type impatiently at a computer or lying dormant at the keyboard while her voice works wonders communicating what sometimes sounds like a dream that you just can’t seem to recall. Other times they’re cooking in the kitchen, picking up onions and garlic and chopping away with such skill that it can come only from experience attained through providing for years. But she too hugs like my father, like once we’re gone, we’re never coming back. But we always come back. Even if there is distance and time between our visits.  

My older sister has arms that have seen some shit. When she was fourteen, we were running a funnel cake stand, unsupervised, and she got 2nd (almost 3rd) degree oil burns all along her forearm. She was crying in the back of the car as my little sister and I watched her drive away and when she came back, all we could say was that the scar looked a little bit like a black bear. We studied it, fascinated, and I helped her treat her burns for a week straight until she could manage to do it herself. My older sister’s arms have also been through all my elementary years, picking me up as I waited for her by the bus stop, dragging wagons carrying my sister and I up a mighty hill and running us right back down it. Her arms were the first arms I’d fall into after the first person I ever loved broke my heart in two with a block of grey text and stinging final words landing their blows. Her arms remind me of who I am, where I come from, they humble me when I’ve said the wrong thing or become too pompous or arrogant. My older sister’s arms are where I come from.  

My little sister, on the other hand, her arms are pale, like porcelain at times. Lack of sun causes that look in her arms, when she spends her days inside of the house huddled up in blankets watching tiny people say tiny things from her tiny screen. Or other days where she spends hours inside of an arena, freezing herself with sweat as she speeds around on delicately sharpened skates. This is something she shares with my older sister, a place of bonding that I can only touch by watching. Spectating from the stands and expanding outwards cheering and shouting time after time. I’ve even expanded my watchful gaze, focusing on other ways to understand their craft. Cheering on instead a wild group of men representing Minnesota so I could hold a candle to what the two of them shared. So I could understand the things that they shared. There were things we used to share too. She used to read books, almost as obsessively as me. There were nights when I’d check on her and see a small light hiding underneath a blanket. Where I’d laugh silently to myself because she was hiding the one thing I’m sure my parents would not get angry at her staying up for. And as soon as the door clicked open, the light would disappear, snuffed out like a candle until she realized it was me and socked me on the shoulder. My little sister’s arms are where I’m going. The little freckles that pierce her skin and the youthful innocence of simply having less to lose.  

And my arms? My arms are nothing but a mere reflection of the arms around me. Like glass pieces attached to me, starting at the shoulders and stretching all the way down to the longest points of my middle fingers. A constellation of mirrors geometrically placed and catching all of the good parts of the people I love. They mostly reflect my mother, her paleness and small freckles, but they also reflect my sisters and my father and my friends. While my arms rarely occupy themselves cooking chicken in the kitchen, they still do what I need them to in order to survive. My arms have spent many a day holding my sisters close to my chest, catching my friends’ heads from falling face down into the toilets, wrapping around another’s shoulders to remind them that I feel their pain and share their grief. My arms are your arms and I assume at some point, your arms will also be mine.