When shopping at the grocery store last week an elderly woman approached my wife who had our baby boy wrapped against her chest. His bulbous head bobbed out of the green cloth and he curled his top lip over it chewing persistently. The older woman wore a candy-striped polyester button-down shirt and her silver hair fell in a wiry pony tail in front of her right shoulder. She gestured a pronated palm with bony fingers toward the bump of a baby under the wrap. I chose a pasta for dinner. The linguine is little tongues. The farfalle is butterflies. The capellini is little hairs. I love when the butter melts on the noodles after you strain them. I smelled the staleness of the older woman and turned fully toward her now to see her nearing my baby and wife. Her finger finally pressed against his tender cheek. I felt no sense of alarm. I looked to her face and watched the lines change. She said something about not ever having "one of her own." My wife and I didn't say anything to her but we smiled while she stood there stroking his cheek for some time. Sometimes there isn't anything to be said. It felt like listening to a Christmas carol, the mix of joy and despair I held in my gut. But it is a feeling I'm sensing more and more often; a strained circumstantial guilt and gratitude. A friend of ours had a baby die at two weeks. A family member found out about a pregnancy and loss at the same appointment. A coworker wants so badly to have a family. She has been reshaped from broken pieces of clay. In the same way that one delights in a cold front as the holidays approach another someone is fearing having no where warm to call home. It can be so hard to sleep when you are cold.
With one hand on the grocery cart I reached down and pulled up on my foot to see the unevenly worn black sole of my sneaker and holding the top of my foot I felt the stretch of my sartorius. It's the longest muscle in my body. I don't want anyone to hurt. I don't.
