palm cravings

There's a soapstone sculpture in the Murumbi Collection at the Kenya National Archives. It's called Dream, by Elkana Ongesa.

Soapstone incites a kind of hunger in my hands. The smooth hard coolness of it is infinitely satisfying to touch. The quality of its surfaces - lustrous yet not shiny, polished but not reflective, can keep my eyes absorbed for hours.

I fell into this particular piece, Dream, the way you'd fall into a silky lake after a 5-mile hike in the sun. Couldn't stop stroking it, trying to memorize it with my palms, capture it in each cell of my fingertips. The friends with me began to laugh, and I was embarrassed enough to stop. But I could've stayed there for hours, just breathing it in, talking to it with my hands. I've never had an urge so strong to own a piece of art.

Today, just a few minutes ago, my hands remembered it. The way your tongue remembers a taste, the way your brain hears a piece of music. My palms are craving soapstone, thirsting for the particular curves and planes and hollows of Dream, every bit as strongly as my body has ever craved chocolate or coffee - or water.