My hands

They are sweet, reassuring hands that I find myself stroking during long and tedious meetings. My mother used to say my hands were like gomma piuma—goose down in Italian. They are in fact soft and plump with short little chubby fingers that are usually topped off by imperfectly manicured fingernails. No rings grace my hands. There are, however, two little adjacent scars on the back of my left hand near the base of my thumb. One, shaped like a little Sicily, was inflicted by my mother years ago while she was driving and I was acting up in the back of the car. She kept one hand on the steering wheel and swung her free hand towards the back of the car and grabbed anything she could find. In this case my hand and with it, a piece of skin. The second I inflicted upon myself. This scar is longer, whiter, deeper and probably had needed stitches at the time. As a child I loved to design and sew new clothes making skirts out of pillowcases, and knitting my own scarves (too long and thin). I was never particularly precise, just creative. Once, I was ripping out the stitches of a hem zealously, and ended up missing the mark and tearing into my skin. I always caress these hands that keep accompanying me heroically through life. I stroke the supple skin and scars and all.