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Clerc Scar 9.927 August 2009
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[Editor's Note: Readers are invited to suggest a thing, person, place, event, or concept for Raymond Luczak to write about. You can suggest anything up to three words and send it to editor@clercscar.com and Raymond will pick one to respond to each week.] I get great pleasure when I trim my fingernails. I know how my fingers feel when I tap on the keyboard, and how I experience pings of pain when my nails, just a tad too long, hit the keys too hard. Trimming my fingernails itself is an act of pleasure: seeing how the white fins have pushed off the cliffs of my fingertips, and watching how the clipper snips a slice of keratin, which is what our nails are made of, into shrapnel that litter the carpet. (Of course, I vacuum afterwards.) I trim the blunt edges until it's as smoothly round as I can possibly make them. Then I survey the tiny trenches exposed at the very ends of my fingers and brush away its coils of lint and gray matter. My favorite part of this ritual happens at the very end: I wash my fingertips under the faucet, feeling the edges of my nails softening, as I rub these exposed trenches again until they are almost malleable. Typing on the keyboard becomes a joy all over again; I also become more accurate. The same thing goes for when I touch fruits and vegetables as I prepare my meals. My signing is slightly more relaxed as I don't feel the pressure of sharp nails against the heels of my palms. My dog adores having my fingertips, freshly trimmed and softened, massage the insides of his hind legs, belly, and chest when he lies on the carpet. The world is good again. Still, I do like the occasional sensation of feeling my fingernails grow out; it means that my body is constantly changing, as it takes a full seven years for our bodies to change and age. I am indeed alive. It's also easier to rip open package flaps as well as the cellophane enclosing DVDs and the strips of security tape off the edges. Given how much we rely on our nails without much thought, it's rather shocking how little we know about these hard shells at the end of our fingers. Scientists have called the border of skin surrounding our nails the eponychium, which is derived from Greek words that mean "on, upon" and "little claw," a nice nod to the fact that for many mammals, keratin constitute their claws. The technical term for the pink portion of our nails is "nail plate," and yes, the term "nail groove" indicates the cylindrical shape of our nails. I didn't know until a minute ago that the white crescents at the bottom of our nails had a specific name: "lunula." The word itself means "moon-like." How strange to think that for many of us, we carry little moons with us no matter what the time of day, and how much faith we place in the cycle of growing our fingernails so that we must harvest them for little reminders of how wonderful and tender life can be.
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Raymond's Web site is at http://www.raymondluczak.com.
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