Finger tip: ‘all you need is love’

“Ooh, you are a loopy girl!”

Kimberley Elliott made this pronouncement while carefully examining my fingertips under a magnifying glass.

“Excuse me?” I asked, laughing.

“Don’t worry,” she said. “It’s good.”

I’d have to take her word for it, since this was my first hand-analysis session. Elliott operates a life-coaching and hand-analysis business in Midtown under the exclamatory moniker Juicy Living! As soon as I met her, I realized the punctuation was no accident. A tall bubbly brunette with an obvious love for her vocation, Elliott bolsters her every sentence with enthusiasm.

Elliott contacted me after reading about my frustrating experience with a tarot-card reader in Nothing Ever Happens (“Psychic up-sell”; April 13, 2006). She offered to analyze the lines in my hands using a non-psychic, non-predictive Western approach to palm reading that focuses on personality and character traits—and signed off by saying she hoped to “restore my faith in ancient practices.”

Still embarrassed by my first not-so-psychic encounter, I put off scheduling an appointment for months. But when I finally showed up at Juicy Living! on a stormy Tuesday morning, I was immediately reassured by Elliott’s warm smile. She led me through a studio with hardwood floors, where she teaches Nia dance, and into a room filled with white furniture, bookcases of self-help tomes and colorful paintings. An orange tomcat peered in at me from the adjacent kitchen, and I took that to be a good sign.

Having been drenched from my rainy walk over, I feared marring Elliott’s white furniture. This anxiety increased when she coated my hands in black paint. She pressed each hand onto a clean sheet of white paper to make a print and then sent me to the bathroom to wash up with—ack!—a white towel.

Fortunately the water-based paint came off easily. Before I knew it, she had my fingertips under the magnifying glass. As Elliott explained, a person’s fingerprints are formed four months before birth. They never change and are never the same as anyone else’s. Every part of the hand below the fingertips, including the major lines on the palm, transform with time. Elliott makes a print of a client’s hands at the start of each reading to get a snapshot of the present. Many of her clients return annually for comparative readings.

For our session, Elliott focused primarily on my fingertips—or, as I now think of them, the source of all loopiness. I settled on her couch and listened as she explained that all fingerprints follow one of four basic patterns: a loop, a whorl, an arch or a tented arch. Hand analysts believe the combination of these patterns on a person’s fingers reveals a life’s purpose, challenge and theme. As it turned out, every one of my fingertips bore a loop. Short of being born with extra digits, it’s impossible for a human being to be any loopier.

“This is interesting,” Elliott said, examining my handprints on paper. “I’ve only seen this two other times. You’re my third one in four years.”

Ten matching loops meant my life’s purpose, challenge and theme were all the same: love. The most fulfilling thing for me, according to my prints, is the creation of relationships—be it with a life partner, family or community. However, my greatest difficulties in life spring from the same goal. “It’s like you’re playing tug of war, but you’re on both ends of the rope,” Elliott said.

Having secretly hoped my fingers pointed to a destiny as a great novelist, I was quite surprised to hear I’d be most satisfied with a lifemate and children—especially since I turn 32 this week and have yet to acquire either. As we finished the reading and I headed back out in the rain, I crossed my newly analyzed fingers that Elliott’s third suggestion, my Sacramento community, will continue to be the place where I can truly relate.

That said, I wish us all a wonderful New Year in our ever-changing riverside city. I’m so grateful to be a part of you, Sacramento, even if I am a bit loopy at times.