Careful Arrangements

She mutters to herself, hums, whispers and babbles, her chin tucked under, hovering her hand above each thing and then lowering it, with little curved fingers, to pluck it up and place it just ... so. Pinching the edge of the plastic cup between the tiny pads of her index finger and thumb, she lowers it once, twice, bumping it against the bigger cup, then on the third try, it nests inside. She raises her hand to her shoulder, elbow bent, and twists her wrist to face her palm backward, in that universal sign of "voila! I did it!" ... and she looks up at us, big eyes, and we smile.

She moves about the house, making these careful arrangements of things and bits, pieces and parts. Pulling apart our hearts and piecing them back together. Ordering her world and ours.


*This precise arrangement of stacking cups was ever-so-carefully orchestrated, inch by inch. Then, with an audible sigh of satisfaction, she declared it complete.