January 30, 2010

• Palm Reader

  I rely on my hands a lot. I rely on my clients’ hands even more. I never saw myself doing this as a job or making this my career. I started out in school thinking that I wanted to become a social worker or a counselor or someone that really was able to help others. To a degree, I think I do still help people. At least, I hope that I do. Either way, you can’t control what skills your hands give you and this is simply my lot in life. Good skills shouldn’t go to waste.

  I think sometimes my skills are just mistaken for another sideshow attraction here on Venice Beach. There’s a bunch of others just like me here. Some of us have real skills and some of us are great pretenders. There are psychics and palm readers and the crazy political people and the slew of young new agers that give free hugs. We’re all here. We are all part of the big glittery sideshow. The tourists come amused by us all, amused by the sights and sounds and big muscles.

  I carefully decorated my shop. I knew that if I wanted to draw customers, skills couldn’t be the only thing I had going for me. My shop is dark with a bit of ambient lighting. There’s dark purple paint on the walls and a sort of fabric tent on the ceiling. I always have candles and incense burning. There’s a few statues around for added interest and mystique, both important in my line of work.

  Most days I sit in my shop reading the latest celebrity gossip rag (it’s a minor failing, I know) and waiting for a customer to come in. Sometimes I hire one of the new agers to draw people into the shop.

  Most of the people that come in are tourists or younger folks who come from places like North Dakota and Arkansas trying to make a living as the next big actor or actress in Hollywood. For right now, they’re waiters and waitresses just trying to scrape by. They mostly come in giggling with their friends. They don’t believe in the power that their hands have to guide them through life and I suppose I don’t really care if they believe or not just so long as I get my $15.

  Hands are powerful things. They have the power to shape the world more than we can ever initially recognize. Eventually these customers may realize this but for right now, I remain simply another attraction on the beach.

   

   

  (56.  Something featuring a psychic or palm reader- mode of creation open ( 4 pts), 57.   Something using hands as a symbolic motif. Mode of creation open. ( 3pts))

  • 3:15 pm
  • 12 Comments