ELTON JOHN: "Healing Hands"

We felt invincible in those days, with a naivety that was more persistent than weed in a neglected garden. Age is forgiving, and luckily there are helpful hands for all of us. They reach out to ours, to overcome our shame, guilt, regret, and resent that have been dripping like stalactites in the caves of our past. They are the hands of lovers; the fingers of a parent who’s more like a friend than a biological ancestor; the grip of a new friend, who shatters your old beliefs with the knock of one odd sentence. Hands heal, words steal. They wake us up from the daze that the past wraps around us like fresh linen on a canopy bed. Sad memories tempt us to forego the possibility of novelty. We embed ourselves in laziness and inertia, and refuse to step out while the morning sun knocks unhearably on the blinds. It’s a long day before the night falls.