Elevator Linguistics

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babies, baby, children, city, conversation, culture, English, ethnicity, experience, family, language, Latin, life, men, New York City, NYC, people, pregnancy, pregnant, relationships, sex, social security, spanish, urban

The woman who was in line ahead of me at the social security office is ahead of me, still, at the elevators to exit. We stand with another woman and her stroller.

“How old?”

Silence, the most brief.

“Cuantos anos?”

“Tres meses.” The woman from the line gasps and peers into the stroller, then cups her own belly, which I hadn’t noticed beneath her layers.

“Oh my God! Seis meses,” Rubbing her belly, still, the elevator lights up, dings, opens. We all climb on. In Spanish, now, the women coo and laugh about their children. Unmarried, each with more children at home and small children in strollers or bellies right here at social security, the elevator fills with beautiful Latin linguistics. They don’t know that I know.

Another ding, door opens, we exit. She turns to me, the bellied, vibrant one, not in Spanish, but accented in a way she can’t help.

“I hardly gained a pound, you see? You can’t even tell I’m pregnant.” She pulls back her vest and shows her belly nested in a thermal as we walk.

“Wow.” I’m smiling, but unsure of what to say. I can’t understand the comment she makes next, but assume it’s in English. Then,

“You can’t depend on a man these days. Have to do it all yourself.” So matter of fact, she makes her last statements. And with a wave, hustles out the door of the social security first floor and around the corner, skinny jeans hugging pregnant thighs.

I stand perfectly still in the sunlight and cold air at the intersection wondering at the impossible gap between our two lives. Yes you can—should I have told her? And, no—you don’t have to.

Pursuing Comfort: a prompt

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church, comfort, family, giving, God, Mexico, money, perspective, spanish, Tijuana

Once, I didn’t have an income from which to give. I gave five dollars without hands give.  I wriggled under stifling summer ropa to free a dollar or two.  My hands were tied-up. My hands were busy, heavy, starting to ache from the weight. My hands were sweaty, my body too warm, nothing but a plastic lawn chair to sit in if I could sit. My compadre pulled a cinco from my pocket to put in the bag that we passed. I didn’t have from which to give. I couldn’t hear a thing. My lips were engaging in a language they didn’t well understand. My ears were ringing in Senor‘s and amor‘s and drips of evaporation were tickling the back of my neck. My hands were held up holding. I had no hands to wipe the salt water pouring from my pores. I’ve maybe never been more uncomfortable, in this heat, under the weight.

Once, I held a babe, a little nino baby in a storefront church in Tijuana, Mexico. Eduardo, who I would paint ceilings with within the week, glanced back at his little sleeping boy in my arms, his hands free and coursing through the thick, humid air in praise. He shouted about El Padre, put his arm around the baby’s madre, and let me hold his pride and joy. I gave American bills from overflow of my income-less life. I shouldn’t and couldn’t afford, but I held a boy I loved. I could do nothing but shout and shake my peasant skirt, hands weary and rocking a tiny little boy who, when grown, will never understand una palabra of my love.  Never have I been more comfortable in love, on foreign soil.