No, they’re Michelangelo’s hands of God and Adam on the Sistine Chapel ceiling.
Nor are they Albrecht Dūrer’s Praying Hands
or Auguste Rodin’s Cathedrale.
Nor is it the work of any other dead white guy whose work I love.
Rather, it’s from a woman who, old and white as she is, very much lives among us.
I saw Sassona Walter’s “Touch” yesterday in front of the old Greenwich Town Hall. I pedaled Negrosa, my vintage Mercian Olympic on an all-but-perfect first-Sunday-in-August morning.
The ride home was pleasantly uneventful until almost the end. On the Randall’s Island-to-Queens span of the RFK Bridge, a young guy on a motor scooter just missed my elbow.
Something seemed strange about the encounter. A moment later, I realized I hadn’t cursed the guy out, even to myself. Was I becoming more of a lady—or simply more accustomed to such things?
Well, a couple of moments later, he took a tumble about ten meters in front of me. I stopped, and a guy on a motorized bike pulled up.
Turns out, the guy on the scooter jammed his brake when he hit a bump. He had a few scrapes but, fortunately, didn’t hit his head.
The guy on the motorized bike and I offered him water, which he turned down. But when we reached our hands to his, he let us lift him up. Then, on discovering that the brake mechanism had broken, we walked with him the rest of the way across the bridge.
