the girl in the bookstore

(Another kind of "otherhood.")

I was in the bookstore the other day – and that’s saying something because the brick and mortar bookstore in Southern California is going away – but nonetheless, I was in one of the remaining bookstores in Southern California the other day, plopped in one of the chairs and idly flipping through a book I thought I was interested in, which turned out not to be true. 

I glanced up from the book I thought I was interested in and saw a beautiful young woman with Down Syndrome standing five feet in front of me, silently smiling a gap-toothed smile at me.  I smiled back and, without a word, she waved at me and started dancing, just for me, it seemed.  She moved slowly, in fits and starts and jerks – and total abandon.   Her face was not beautiful and yet it was.  Her body was not beautiful and yet it was.  I've seen and known professional dancers and they could train a lifetime and not ever touch the grace and freedom of this lone girl frolicking before me in the history aisle in one random doomed bookstore.  I watched her, amazed, tears suddenly streaming, tears that were equal parts joy and jealousy. 

When was the last time I was that free?  When was I ever?  She knew something I didn’t and it was just an inch beyond my reach, a tick outside my understanding.   She danced in her world and I watched in mine and I knew they weren’t the same but I desperately wanted them to be.  It ended before I wanted it to and when her dance was over, an invisible “on” switch suddenly flicked to off.  She simply hunched over and shuffled away, me staring in her wake, her without a backward glance.  The crack that had opened between our worlds closed without words or warning, leaving me crying in the history aisle, a Korean lady throwing furrowed looks my way.

the sign

It is wedged against the inside of a box of books when I find it. I tug, not even sure what it is as I do so. A moment later it is in my hands. A small doorknob sign, cross-stitched with branches and birds and eggs. Baby Sleeping, it reads. I stare at it unblinking. It is small and light, but my hands feel suddenly heavy. 

What is this? Where did it come from?

 

Then I remember a hopeful friend about 10 years ago and her hopeful shining face and that sting comes again, that sting in my stomach and in my eyes. A sting that used to be my constant mocking companion, but who now only drops by rude and unannounced, like this. I have not missed him. One last fleeting glance at those delicate nesting birds and I shove the sign back in the box.