Momma, hands, and the really nice cliche guy in the parking lot

I was putting groceries in my car. Apparently, it isn't annoying enough to remember what you need, make a list, wander all over the store trying to unravel the scavanger hunt of where they might hide it, and pay for it. Nope. You need the weight bearing excercise of tossing groceries for 8 into the back of a 4 wheel drive suburban.

Anyway.

A college kid walked by playing his guitar. Because of course you would just wander around town like a troubador playing "Stairway to Heaven" on your very shiny red guitar. Is there another song?

He made me think of my mom. I remembered her elegant fingers dancing across the strings of her pale honey colored guitar. It made me happy to think of her playing "It aint me, babe" and me watching her lovely fingers. I always wanted hands like hers. Elegant and strong.

I have dad's hands. Great square blocks on thick wrists. Oh, and they're red. They are perfectly useful hands. They're good in a fight since it's pretty much like hitting someone with a 10 pound hammer. They can carry a lot. Great hulking hands like mine can hold up the world and sometimes they do.

But Momma's hands were pretty and they made pretty music while I sat on her bed and listened to her play all the songs that meant that she didn't love my dad. Her pretty songs and her wanted some place else to be.

That is how we are all connected. We are all tied up in three bars of a song. And one boy being a cliche in a parking lot in Idaho is the story of my parents and how they didn't stay together and how I wanted her hands and have his.