Muscle Memory

Muscle Memory by debgrant

I was sitting under an umbrella-ed table on the outdoor patio of the coffee shop.

I watched a woman and three little girls exit a car in the parking lot. The girls followed her in a line across the patio to the door of the shop. The woman never took her eyes off the phone in her hand. The girls were in a line in ascending height, shortest to tallest. The woman opened the door with her free hand, still reading the screen of her phone, while the girls entered the shop walking under the span of her arm. Her arm knew exactly how high it needed to be on the door to let each child walk under her wing without ducking their heads.

At first, the phone fixation bothered me. I have my own phone fixation. It is easier to find it annoying in others than to change my own habits.

What lingered for me, however, was the gentle choreography of this woman’s muscle memory for these little ones…even as she was otherwise distracted. I need to give people more room to move so that they don’t have to duck beneath my judgment and I don’t hit my head on my own short-sightedness.

This is why I go to the coffee shop. To see what I am missing about humanity and reclaiming a bit of my own.

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