Pablo//Madeline Keating & She Tells Stories with Her Hands// Elaine Morgan

Pablo//Madeline Keating

She Tells Stories with Her Hands//Elaine Morgan

The baby’s first word is milk. Of course, it is. She’s hungry, after all. Her little fist clenches and unclenches to the obvious delight of her Momma. 

Those little fists snag Momma’s brown curls, always a bit tangled, and Momma says ouch, pointing her index fingers together. 

The baby is in a little onesie, feet kicking and hands exploring, with a gummy smile. While the baby pulls herself along on her belly, much like the Very Hungry Caterpillar in that board book the baby will love for years to come, Momma gives the baby a special word, “I love you.” Her thumb and index finger and pinky are pointed up, while her middle and ring fingers are pointed down. 

Momma tells stories with her hands, much to the toddler’s fascination. Momma points to the mouse who hides a strawberry from a big, hungry bear and traces the toddler’s finger across the silver scales of a rainbow fish who will give all those scales away. The toddler’s mind is limited, still developing, but rapidly, and the more colors and pictures she sees as Momma turns the pages, the more a world of stories opens up. 

The toddler knows more words now. She can say dog, patting her knee, and kitty, mimicking the whiskers that Bandit has. She can say Daddy, an outstretched hand with her thumb against her forehead, and she can say Momma, with an outstretched hand and a thumb against her chin, and she can say “I love you” back, when Momma holds up her pinky and thumb and index finger, leaving the other two down. 

The toddler never wonders if Momma wishes she could hear her baby gurgles and toddler babbles. She doesn’t understand yet. She thinks it’s normal, normal to talk with your hands. 

Baby turns to toddler and toddler turns to kindergartner. In kindergarten, nobody talks with their hands. The kindergartner sucks her thumb and doesn’t talk much at all. Till Momma talks to her about being a big girl, and then she stops sucking her thumb abruptly, stubborn as she is. 

Because she is a big girl now. She can form simple sentences, with her mouth and with her hands. She’s hungry, she says, and pulls a cupped hand down her chest. She’s thirsty, and she drags a finger across her throat. She always points at herself, because of course, the whole universe is hers, it all revolves around her. 

Grandpa and Grandma say she’s very intelligent. She just likes to explore, and explore. Much like that little boy that journeys to where the wild things are, except she can’t put those wild things to pages yet. 

Momma wants to teach the big girl at home now and allows the girl a chance at the computer. A chance at creating adventures, putting wild things to pages. Her first adventure is choppy, with lots of stock photos, and a rat in the kitchen. But Momma loves it, and the girl creates adventures, especially unfinished ones, almost every day. 

Now Momma teaches the girl true stories, about men who went sailing with no destination, about inventions that could fly, about gruesome knives that plunge into necks of royalty, about a woman arrested for sitting on a bus. So, so many stories, with a myriad of characters, but too few that talked with their hands. 

The big girl wonders now if Momma is sorry that she can’t hear the girl tell her stories. 

In middle school, the girl watches the fascination people have when she talks with her hands. The lady in the supermarket who stares unabashedly, the children who talk gibberish in their pretending, the teammates and travelmates who ask about talking with their own hands, and learn stumbling. 

How rare it is for her to have friends that can talk with their hands, too. Yet when they come around, they like to trick the others. In Mexico, the girl’s friend replaces one word with the word “constipation,” and by God, was that funny… Now the girl wonders if that boy they taught ever learned the right word for truck. 

Momma is patient with all the people who talk very slow and don’t know many words. The girl supposes it’s been like this for all Momma’s life, but the thoughts come often: is it lonely to talk only with your hands?

The girl isn’t lonely, and her head is always up in space with the stories and the characters she holds dear. Her own life is becoming like a storybook, like all her favorites in The Babysitter’s Club, a series of which Grandma has every single book. Momma used to read those books too. 

The girl hates the word “young woman,” and hopes someday they’ll come up with a better way to talk about high-school-aged girls. For now, it’ll have to do. 

High school is hard, and the young woman knows that. No amount of stories could have prepared her for what the young woman could call “the depths of despair,” but she knows that’s just too cliche for her taste. All she knows is that these depths hurt and break the skin. Yet as much as she feels it, she’s not alone, because Momma is always there with her thumb and pinky and index finger pointed up, “I love you.” 

The young woman’s eyes are opened wide when Momma combats the pastor, who cannot integrate new kinds of people into his Sunday services. The young woman will never understand how difficult it is for Momma to talk only with her hands, but she knows now that Momma isn’t lonely, not one bit. 

The people and culture that Momma is surrounded by are rich, with loving people who translate words and with silly children’s shows, all for people who can talk only with their hands. Momma and these others tell stories so differently than the young woman does, with bubbling lips and eyes half shut, hands swirling and reaching big and wide, like a whirlpool that sucks you deep down, down, down, into the world they know. 

The young woman has never heard or told a story that captures that whirlpool just quite right, and she wonders if she ever will.

Big girl turns to young woman, and young woman turns to woman. Maybe. The woman thinks she’s maybe still a young woman. After all, she’s only eighteen. Every day the world opens up more and more with new adventures, and she doesn’t see Momma every day anymore. She thinks about Momma all the time, and there’s always someone new who doesn’t know that the woman can talk with her hands. The woman has done her research and has asked Momma so many questions, and knows that no one should feel sorry for Momma. 

Because nothing will ever quite compare to a toddler learning to talk with her hands, to teaching friends silly words, to a whirlpool of stories, to the feeling when the woman sees Momma over video call and they can both say “I love you,” with their middle and ring fingers pointed down, and index fingers and thumbs and pinkies pointed up. 


She Tells Stories with Her Hands-Audio

Madeline Keating

Madeline Keating is a senior double majoring in History and Studio Art with a minor in English. She is originally from Overland Park, Kansas. She has always had a love for art in all forms of media ranging from painting to intaglio. At Morningside, she is involved in Sigma Tau Delta and the swim team. She is thrilled to have the opportunity for her artwork to be published in the Kiosk.

Elaine Morgan

Elaine Morgan is a freshman at Morningside University. She is on the swim team and is involved with Active Minds on campus.

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