Category: <span>Relationships</span>

It was up to me to work out what Geoff and I were going to do with ourselves this afternoon/evening. I didn’t really succeed in any grand plan (much to my dismay more than Geoff’s) but in the end it didn’t really matter.

We opted for a ‘picnic’ (Unprepared style = buy pizza rolls, chocolate and coke from the nearest supermarket. Mmm healthy!). I decided that I’d drive, considering I hadn’t hardly worked anything out, clearly I’d be a flagellant if I lived in the Middle Ages.

So we are driving up to Warburton and decided to go the extra mile to the top of Mt. Donabuang. We were so close and then Fred (my car) let out an angry hiss and Geoff made me pull over very, very quickly. The hiss was promptly followed by a lot of steam and the splattering spray of some nasty brown/oil smelling liquid.

The diagnosed hypothesis was that I’d blown a hose, it looked like there was an abundance of oil so we decided not to ineptly perform home mechanics and instead went to call the RACV.

Of course there was zero phone reception.

Nice motorbike man saved the day, and drove my details to an area with reception and called the RACV for us. We had an hour or so to kill in which we ate our picnic in the car and had plenty of humorous conversation matter (laced with intervals of verbal annoyance that my stupid car had decided to carked it). I also got a photo or two but don’t have it just yet.
The RACV guy was a tad cranky because he got a little lost on the way to find us. He thought I might’ve at first have blown a head gasket and then changed his mind after pouring a lot of water in some hole (believe me I’m not a mechanic) much to my relief.

So my car was simply overheated and had a massively dirty radiator – hence the brownish liquid. He of the qualified followed us back down the mountain and I watched the guage very closely as we drove back to Geoff’s.

We ended up playing a highly competitive game of RISK with Ron and Anne (Geoff’s parents) where I was the first to go out and it came to a one on one, piece on piece roll of the dice. Geoff conquered.

Here’s to my car for sharing my 1986 status, because I actually had an exceptional evening!

I’ve always had a bit of an unnatural, unspoken of obsession with hands. I like hands. They are fascinating, beautiful, able and even those that are absorbed with arthritis or similar still hold some kind of weird appeal.

I like big hands. I like small hands.

I find great pleasure in remembering and watching people’s hands, they’re easy to take for granted.

I like the woman’s hands that scanned my shopping the other day. I like that there was a sign that said “Cannot lift more than #kg’s” and yet she was still there.

The word ‘hand’ has a several positive meanings, take these for example:

noun: ability

noun: a round of applause to signify approval

And what is said about hands:

“In the absence of any other proof, the thumb alone would convince me of God’s existence.”– Sir Isaac Newton

“The hand is the cutting edge of the mind.”
-Jacob Bronowski

I like that humans (if my sketchy memory of Biology and evolution theories hold) are the only beings with a fully opposable/prehensible thumb.

If I had to lose one of my five senses – touch would probably be the last to go.

I bite my nails, I have shocking circulation and relatively regular RSI, but I like my hands. I like that I can do.

I like that I can type fast. I like that I can hold things. I like that I can touch things and feel soft and hard and sharp and smooth.

I like that hands often indicate, ‘to help’. I like that hands can comfort.

I like that my friend Kerryn once pointed to me towards a verse in Isaiah that brings a familiar gesture to an often incomprehensible God.

“I, the LORD, have called you in righteousness;
I will take hold of your hand.
I will keep you and will make you
to be a covenant for the people
and a light for the Gentiles…” (42:6)

I like holding hands.

There is some kind of paradox about hands. So safe – but not.

Open them if you need to.
Hold them if you haven’t.
Lend them regardless.

Marvel and live dangerously.