Growing Root

Do you ever see just a part of someone you know but on someone else?

Let me 'splain. This happens to me a lot, mostly with hands, sometimes with lips. I'll see someone I don't know walking down the street and part of them will look exactly like someone I know.

Today it was Carl (sorry Carl, I couldn't come up with a pseudonym). I happened to be walking into the park behind a young dad and his approximately 2 year old charge. I'd been following them for a couple of blocks and this dad was a master at guiding without touch and following this luminous little boy's whims. They investigated some flowers, hung out with a few people on a stoop and were navigating the stairs at the park entrance when I caught up to them. The boy was insistent that he didn't need to hold a hand so Dad let go, but leaned down and held a hand, hovering, a bare inch behind his son, ready to support him if his wobbling turned to falling. And that gesture was Carl. It was Carl's hand with Carl's wedding ring placed just so on it and it was a gesture that spoke so strongly of Carl that I nearly asked the guy if he was Carl's brother. Having met Carl's brothers I know that he wasn't so I let it go. You know how hard it is for me to let stuff go so I get a pat on the back for this.

And all that reminded me that I failed to mark the entrance into this world of Little Root.

Pseudonyming her took me a while. I thought I'd go with something reminiscent of her dad, my cousin, TG. TinyG? G Tiny? TG Redux? Or maybe I'd work with her mom, LP, and call her 45RPM. At the end of my park walk I decided I'd rather play with her real name, so I pseudonymed her Root.

Root arrived on Mother's Day, much to the excitement of her parents. I don't know about TG but I suspect that having a root is something that LP has wanted for a long time.

TG has nothing if he has not energy. Hence the carefully inclusive mass e-mail of about 30 pictures of Root three days after she was born. She's gorgeous! Pretty reddish hair and these long gangly baby limbs. She looks like the prettiest little frog you ever saw. I am unreasonably excited by her appearance and I hope I'll get to see her in person soon.

Welcome Root! This is the world, I think you're going to like it.