TO HOLD THINGS, OR NOT

Sometimes it is difficult to hold things in your hands. Heavy boxes. Important decisions. Very hot potatoes.

But it might be more difficult not to hold anything in your hands at all. There is nothing for you to hold, and yet, you need there to be—want there to be—and so you close your fists tight around air, around anxiety, around necessity or panic, digging your fingernails into your palms. It hurts.

The most difficult thing of all is to hold nothing in your hands and to wait, open-palmed, for something to be placed in them. It is difficult, and your hands are shaking with the waiting, and the wanting, and the not-knowing what it will be—if it will be good, or bad, or not what you wanted or ever imagined it would be. It will be surprising. And, if you've really waited, open-palmed, not grabbing at air or other things that aren't very worth holding, it probably will be just the right thing.

Wait.