Dancing Fingers, Breathing Toes

At a very early age, I learnt the language of hollows. Hollows that are formed by the absence of sound. Hollows of unsung notes. Hollows formed on paper by empty curves of ink. I learnt to see the world in hollows – as that which is not – as trapped empty spaces.

She ran towards my two year old self as I stared back in wonder and amazement. I grew up to find out that I was eating a worm in the back yard with my back towards her in the kitchen. How did she know? Little did I know then, that the whole process of growing up would be full of awe.

 I didn’t know then, that when I would be eight years old, she would pull my face towards her and her eyes would say out loud, “NO” to communicate that I was misbehaving.

I didn’t know then that, they would have long conversations while I played with trucks in the absence of sound.

I would often hear the neighbours using voice to stop their children from mischief. Mine, used action. My neighbours would yell and run after their child throwing a tantrum. Mine just ran after me and pulled my face towards them, while I screamed at the top of my lungs.

I didn’t know then, that when I would be a teenager and come home after curfew hours, a light would light up in the bedroom even before my car pulled in the drive way. I always wondered then, “How do they know?”

I would learn later how my diapers got changed in pin-drop silence. How my visit to the pediatrician would be thick with silence. How the trips to the cottage were filled with lose silence. How their fights bore a painful silence. Every type of silence had a flavour.

When I would be sick my mother seemed to know what I needed without me having to ask for it. I guess, all mothers have that sense. There was something extraordinary about mine, though. Every little thing that happened to me seemed be like a wave of energy passing through her body. It almost felt like she breathed my breath through her toes. Her whole body seemed to be sensitive to my feelings and it seemed as though she had ears all over her body.

The air splitting among their combined fingers would then, communicate worry to each other.

I didn’t know then, that one day, I would also learn to see through these dancing fingers and give meaning to the quietude.

As I was growing up, our conversations became visual music to me. The hollows that our dancing fingers would create had become the life-blood of my relationship with my parents. Over the years the touch became more and more expressive and the conversations more elaborate as I excelled in their sign language vocabulary. I do visit them often, as I long for the expressive silence.

Today they are old. They seem to have lost the need for the dancing fingers and the breathing toes. The simple quiet air between them has become eloquent.