How many onions?

It is guaranteed that I am always to be found in the most heavenly of moods when preparing supper [not] and one evening, last week, I grumpily thought to myself "how many bleedin' onions must these hands have chopped over the years?"

I looked down at my hands and then began to ponder just how difficult it would be for me to chop an onion if I wasn't fortunate to have a fully functioning pair of paws. It was with some wonder that I realised just how many tasks a day they allow me to achieve and I don't even notice. They don't just allow me to go about my daily business at work and running the home, but they allow me to operate machinery, to drive between places, to create and repair, bake, sew and move. I can think of times when they have held new life [my son, a newborn guinea pig] and touched death. They have been used to caress, scold, comfort and express both joy, anger, fear and confusion. I've held ancient objects and those newly made, explored surfaces unseen and experienced textures and temperatures across the scale from a glacier to parched dry conditions. These hands have had nails painted in colours from the deepest blood red to sunshine yellow and been adorned with rings of silver, hula hoops, gems from my ancestors and the rings I wear everyday to mark my marriage.

So, perhaps once in a while, it's good for me to remember just to be quietly thankful for one of those everyday marvels I never "see". As for the question of onions....I never did reach any sort of conclusion. Just bleedin' sackfuls mate!

Arilx