YOUNG MEMORY

Nora Geffen
Northwestern University
Newton, MA
Leaning
Most of today I am thinking about ventilators.
Most of today I am thinking about empty beds and empty retirement funds and my grandparents
alone at the breakfast table.
Most of today I am thinking about bruising on cheekbones.
But for twenty minutes of today, in the sterile brightness of early afternoon in my kitchen, I am
thinking about leaning against someone’s chest.
Something I’ve done more times than I knew to count— trusting just a little of my weight to
someone just a little taller than me with just slightly wider shoulders in a soft cotton t-shirt.
Not even talking to him, just leaning against him as I talked to someone else or took a sip or
simply breathed and watched as the room spun softly around us like couples dancing on a sticky
floor.
How many places of contact are there in that type of lean?
My shoulder blade against his chest, the back of my head resting lightly on his shoulder.
My ass, inevitably, against one of his legs.
Sometimes there was an arm, one of his, around my waist.
Fingers, maybe, in my hair.
I don’t remember.
I didn’t number these places of contact while they were happening, didn’t catalogue each one
precisely, medically, to return to later, to assess as a tiny, unbelievable miracle.
Sometimes there must have been lips pressed quickly, gently, against the top of my head. They
must have been precious, those few seconds of contact. I don’t remember them.
There must have been, on some occasions, breath against my ear.
And then in thinking about leaning I’m really thinking about all of it— about the gentle pressure
of a hand in yours, about the orderly row of high-fives at the end of a little league game, about
waltzing. Waltzing, and the feeling of your hand in his and your hand on his shoulder and your
noses close together but mostly the feeling of his hand on the small of your back.
About fingers brushing when passing the salt and shoulders touching in a packed train and hair
braided on the playground. About laughing after bumping feet under the table and about how
intimate it is to touch someone’s cheek.
And in thinking about all of it I find I am praying.
Praying, softly, futile, insistently, to lean once more against someone’s chest.
In the mostly-dark of 3am, to inaudible music, in a crowded room with a steady, pulsing,
collective heart beat, to lean against someone’s chest and for it not to be a miracle.
To feel a hand in mine without thinking to call it sacred.
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