Seeing

My husband often comments that for a writer I don’t seem that observant. We can go to a party and later he is surprised by the fact that I didn’t notice something he thought obvious… something most people would have noticed. And he’s right—I very often miss the big stuff. But I also see things that others don’t see.

Case in point, I’m on a research trip in Paris at the moment and I was on a city bus yesterday. A couple got on with their young son, maybe 7, and an infant in his stroller. The baby got fussy and the father leaned down and cooed at him, played with this fingers and tried to stop him from crying. No luck. He stood back up and began slowly moving the stroller back and forth, as if to rock his child into a better mood. It didn’t work. But within 5 seconds, something did work and the child stopped fussing. What worked? Kiddie tranquillizers? A pacifier? Nope—a glove.

Huh? A glove? What…?

As she was talking to her husband, the wife took off one of her gloves and lowered it down in front of the crying baby. He reached out to touch it. He studied it for a while. He reached for it again. He batted at it with his little fist. He opened his hand and tried to take hold of it. Missed. Tried again—success. The mother, never missing a beat in her conversation with her husband, lowered the glove so he could hold it. He played with it for a bit, but finally lost interest—and that was the exact moment she lifted the glove up so that it was out of his reach. Within a nanosecond he was reaching for the glove again. She let him succeed in taking the glove from her. He played with it for a while, putting his hands inside, or trying, and examining it as carefully as a baby can. Then he arched his little back and held it in his hand for his mother to take. Again, without breaking stride in the conversation she was having with her husband, she took the glove, waited a few seconds and then lowered it to the baby, who, once again, was delighted to see it. And during all of this, the mother looked at her child only once—her gaze remained with her husband.

This dance of the glove went on until I left the bus. And I was the only one who saw it—my husband, sitting next to me, hadn’t noticed it.

The wife who knew exactly how to occupy her child in a very simple way, possessed a character trait I won’t long forget. How will I use it in my writing? I’ve no idea. Maybe I’ll have a woman who’s in the middle of a long argument with her husband, and yet, instinctively takes care of her child. OR maybe the father looks on at the ease with which his wife calms their child and we see the envy in his eyes. Or maybe the child morphs from reaching for that glove to reaching for the similarly gloved hand of his girlfriend 20 years later.

I may not know how I’ll use that moment—or even if I ever will. But it left a feeling with me, a small moment of knowing that makes me glad I was on that bus.

I notice little things—things other people don’t—and that’s, perhaps, why I miss the big things… I’m just not looking at what everyone else is.

What did you see today?

Copyright © Diane Lake

15Jan17

Email Diane a question to Diane@DianeLake.com