Once again, a routine visit to the supermarket becomes a little voyage of scenes and scenarios.

On the way in, a mother has placer her child in her shopping cart, a site I always strikes me as cute and I am tempted to ask in which aisle did she find such a lovely child?

This child has an expression that I can’t quite pin down: wonder? calmness? But she does seem surrounded by a transparent aura of wonder and calmness. And I enter the market already glowing a bit, inside.

The woman shopper at the cheese counter, leaning into the clerk behind it, saying something sweet and lyrical that I can’t hear, but I see her form words ending in 000 so that her mouth takes on the cuteness required by words like you and two and moo.

There is the man at the next checkout line, staring not at the line he is in, but ninety degrees off that axis, along the row of checkout lanes, in my direction. He looks grim, serious. I can’t decide if he is internally consumed by anger or if that is only my projection of his thoughts. I am faintly tempted to ask if I can inquire as to what he is actually thinking about… but I don’t.

As I back out of my parking space I realize the car to my left is backing out at the exact same moment, which is mildly disorienting. The woman driving the other car and I stop, look at each other and erupt in mutual smiles. I toss my head to indicate she can go first. And we part ways after a tiny moment of slight connection.

I go home and unpack my groceries including my organic carrots, which agree to sit for a quick portrait before they are relegated to the frig.