I ask, as Czeslaw Milosz wrote, “not out of sorrow, but wonder.” My old hand drew familiar lines: hairlines, tightly spaced, scrolled at the ends. It paralleled how I like to approach the world, gentle and controlled.
This hand is a stranger in a bar, offering to buy me a drink, and at first I am tempted to refuse, but accept out of curiosity. Curiosity gets me into trouble. Trouble, it seems, gets me into that part of my brain that usually minds its own business and gets along quite well without my superego handing out orders as if it really knows what’s going on.
This hand dislikes planning. It prefers accidents of ink.