There was grease under my fingernails when I woke this morning. Not that I did much mechanical work, but a weekend cleaning the garage meant handling a lot of tools. Even after two showers and countless hand washings, the smudge of grease is still in the edges.
It made me think of my father. For decades he worked in the wrecking yard and the grease would never completely disappear from his fingernails. Didn’t matter if it was Sunday morning at church, a fine dinner, or a weekend away in Tahoe — the evidence of the junkyard was embedded in his hands.
As a kid, I loved seeing those dirty hands of my father. It expressed manliness I suppose, but it also meant my Dad was a real person. The grease in his fingernails simultaneously expressed his flaws and his strengths.
So this morning I looked at the smudge of grease on my hands and smiled. There is something primal and untamed about getting our hands dirty. It reminds us we’re human. It reminds us we are part of this messy home we call Earth. It reminds us we have purpose.
It also reminded me of something I wrote for my (hopefully) upcoming book. As a tease, here’s a paraphrased portion:
“Or perhaps I learned even earlier, as a child sitting at the knee of my Aunt in one of the finest restaurants in Silicon Valley, hearing stories of hardship and poverty from her childhood during the Great Depression. Her memories of hunger awkwardly contrasted to both the abundance on our table and the wrecking yard hands of my father, grease under his fingernails, gripping a large roll of twenties.”
This morning I woke and saw grease under my fingernails. It made me smile. It made me remember. It made me thankful.