Week in Seven Words #438

conducting
A tourist family clumps beside me on the subway. When they hear my reassurance that they're on the right train, and that we're all going to the same place – the Staten Island Ferry – they follow me like baby ducklings until they're safely on the boat.

enlivening
He apologizes for talking too much, but there's no need. He's funny, clever, and down-to-earth. His brain is an old bookshop of anecdotes you'd actually want to listen to and historic trivia made more interesting by his theatrical retellings.

goggle-eyed
Two daycare workers push a large mini-van type of stroller with six babies, who stare at us in fascination, as if they're taking a tour of a zoo stocked with strange adults.

padding
A silent, muddy path in the woods. Something is watching me from the undergrowth. A cat.

snuffle
The dog hops onto the couch, where I'm working on some editing. She presses against me and sniffs at the small pile of pages balanced on my thigh. There's a chance that she'll try eating one of them. (She doesn't. Maybe the kind of ink I'm using isn't appetizing.)

unchanging
There's a timeless quality to the park's headquarters. The main room is small and smells of sawdust. The lighting is cozy and dim. Maps are scattered across the table, and posters and diagrams that largely go unread make the walls colorful. I can see the room being preserved this exact way for decades.

vista
The field is shaped like a bowl. It's screened by trees all around, and on one side it's bordered by a broad river.

Week in Seven Words #408

booty
Their yard sale is set up on a street corner, and it looks like they've unloaded a pirate ship. There are chests of different sizes, exotic rugs, a sword, grimacing sculptures that look like idols swiped from a jungle altar. (The sword is fake, as it turns out.)

breakable
There's little space in the sculpture shop, and I'm afraid to move. The sculptures are thin and fragile, with wavy contours and ornaments made to snap off at the errant touch of a shoulder.

determined
He sets the toddler loose, and she aims unerringly for the puddle. He picks her up just as the tips of her feet touch the edge and sets her down several feet away. Immediately she swerves and heads for the puddle again.

downtime
The low seat by the window on the second floor of the bookstore: a place for people to pause and take stock of their day (or life), or burrow into a book for a while. Today a nanny is there, leaning her forehead against the window while the baby lies across her lap, asleep.

imbibed
During Trivial Pursuit, he keeps hoping I'll trip up on Sports & Leisure. After several questions about athletes I'd never heard of competing at sports I rarely watch, I get a question about a mixed drink I enjoyed the week before. That's more like it.

misread
Halfway through reviewing the text, I realize that I've been reading 'garish' as 'garnish.' That makes a difference. Also, I'm probably hungry.

uncovering
A rare moment when we're alone, and I discover that without the constraints of other people, we're able to speak freely and find common interests we didn't know we shared.

Week in Seven Words #397

casually
Babies can be so nonchalant. This one has a cold, and without pause, she sneezes straight into her dad's face, then continues peering around and reaching for things.

characterization
"This time, it's going to be different," he says, "I'm going to write fiction that has characters. I mean, they're going to be like people this time."

diffuse
The number of people at the table makes it so that there isn't any pressure on me to speak; at the same time, I'll have someone to talk to (and something to talk about) when I choose.

dodge
He senses the pressure placed on him to read the words, to make the effort exactly to the adult's specifications, and he ducks behind his phone.

fluttering
She holds her troll doll in the air to watch the wind comb through its hair.

recuperate
The first night is rough, because my throat is raw and painful. The next day passes on wobbly legs. Then the second night comes, and with it, thankfully, a deep, healing sleep that helps so much.

riparian
We walk on a sandy path by the river. It runs like a thread through needly pale green shrubs.

Week in Seven Words #387

concealment
Bored, he texts me from the party to list all the places where he could hide from the other guests. The shrubs by the pool provide good coverage. There's room for most of him behind the piano in the den.

freshening
I love an early Sunday walk when the light is soft and the streets are mostly empty.

humbling
I'm beaten badly by two children at Settlers of Catan. They rob me of all my resources. They laugh as I lose my lumber and ore.

refusal
There are different ways of saying good-bye. One is to avoid saying it at all, to turn away at the moment of parting and slip into another room.

soothed
She sits in a blanket nest on the bed and frets. I cup her cute bald head in my hand, and she calms.

teeming
A sulfurous odor leaks out of the pails of water he's set up in the basement for his plastic animals. He's lined some of the pails with dirt from the backyard, and without knowing it has invited new kinds of organisms into his collection, alive and bacterial.

unignorable
I don't pay attention to the tendons in my feet, until one of them painfully, insistently reminds me that it exists.

Week in Seven Words #386

clubhouse
The conference room smells like grease, leather, and aftershave. The attendees, mostly men, scarf down pizza and sit on colorful plastic chairs. They're talking about cutting-edge technology, while pretending that they're in a school cafeteria. There are board games stacked on every table.

colossal
The giant seated ballerina looks like a float that broke off from a parade and came to rest among skyscrapers.

future
Ten years ago, did you imagine your life as it is now? (When I ask her this, she shakes her head and frowns.) So that means that ten years from now, your life may also become something you can't currently imagine. Hopefully in a good way. You aren't stuck.

needling
After demanding that he prove his identity, they ask him a bunch of questions about himself. Like, "What's your nickname for string cheese?" He answers each one, but they look skeptical, telling him that they're not sure it's really him. These are the kind of mind games older siblings come up with.

overtures
Building a fragile trust with the baby, who smiles with saliva-bubbly lips and then breaks into a wail.

pause
Sunlight, green leaves, and a pale gray pond in the early morning.

prelude
Balloons float off into a dusky sky as the orchestra warms up.

Week in Seven Words #370

baby
She's a cute little peanut, slouched in her stroller. Disgruntled, squirmy, delighted, and peaceful in turns.

capsizing
Our conversation is a lazy river that turns into Class IV rapids.

darkening
Rot has crept into every petal. Rotting roses smell like potatoes.

droplets
Near Times Square, an animated display of M&Ms attracts the kids. They run to the cloudburst of candies, the shower of colorful sugar.

pond
She doesn't want to use the steps at first. They're slippery and lead to a path smeared with mud. But the view is worth it for her: A stone bridge, a pond that doesn't bare all its secrets but asks you to follow it as it curves out of sight.

tailed
As I head north, they catch up to me at each crosswalk. When I veer west, they give up their pursuit.

unsettled
This time we meet at a Dunkin' Donuts the size of a pocket. She raises the coffee to her nose, lowers it without taking a sip, and describes the wreckage of her life.

Week in Seven Words #368

chow
She's catering the party. The doughy, salty, sweet dishes are spread across the counter.

redirect
The park has been carved out of a rocky hill. You think you're heading north, but really, you're climbing to a lookout point. It's a beautiful detour. You head back down, and again attempt to make your way north. Now you're in a garden. Could these stairs take you out of the park? No, you wind up at another lookout point. Best make yourself comfortable. Here's a bench.

serpentarium
He has turned a part of the basement into a sanctuary for snakes. They live in drawers and pails. Many of them are stuffed animals, and the rest are plastic, but he takes the trouble to feed them and set up a program for breeding them.

shorting
There's this frustrating thing that happens in conversations. People hear the name of a person or thing they don't like, and their brain blows a fuse. From thoughtful, complete sentences, they go to slogans and taunting names. They begin to raise their voice, and the intelligence leaves their eyes.

suggesting
As she sleeps, expressions drift across her face - a wrinkle of fussiness, the glow of a passing smile.

surfing
With his face mashed into a couch cushion he says, "Why am I watching this garbage when there's other garbage on?"

tidily
They have trim beards and pleasant smiles, colorful graphs on PowerPoint slides. And they make economics sound so straightforward.

Week in Seven Words #365

courtly
He tips his hat and wishes me a good afternoon. It's sunny out, and he's serene. It really is a good afternoon.

dab
Fingerprints of sunlight on faded brick and joyful murals.

felinity
In the gap between brownstones, there's a fenced off dirt plot, studded with rocks. Two cats inhabit it. One sprawls on a bed of sunlight. The other watches me with menacing alertness.

horseplay
Kids seize each other in headlocks outside the department store in front of the mannequins and pink placards, as they wait for their mom to finish shopping.

neighborly
In their community, neighbors, friends, and coworkers will show up with trays of food in the days after childbirth.

neonate
She sleeps in a warm crescent against my stomach.

slumberous
With classes cancelled for the day, the campus is silent. A building with a crenellated tower casts a shadow over the grounds.

Week in Seven Words #364

chip
A sunlit, sterile store displays several rows of small devices.

flourishes
During the subway ride, she asks about each stop and what you could see in the local neighborhood. A proprietary feeling for the city comes over me. It doesn't matter if a subway station is grimy and rundown; I look on it with fondness, because it has become my grimy and rundown station.

miniature
The furniture from centuries ago looks doll-like, as if the people then were not only smaller but more delicate and fragile.

motorboat
A high-speed boat skips like a stone across the river.

neonatal
The baby wears a striped hat. She squirms from time to time in her sleep. Her sleep seems intent, energetic.

posing
They dab, dance, and toss their hair on the videos they make with a lip-syncing app.

postpartum
It's a quiet ward, which is surprising. The hospital room has a dim evening glow. For the moment, the baby is being weighed and measured in the nursery. A nurse, who strikes me as sincerely caring, quietly speaks to the mother, both about what to expect in the coming hours and about a maternal health issue that needs to be monitored.

Week in Seven Words #352

attend
For the first time in a while, I give her a kiss on the cheek. I try to pay more attention to her anecdotes.

charitable
Bags of clothing mushroom out of the donation bin.

glisten
Sunset spattering peach and gold on the river.

improvise
She builds a zip line for her dolls, just because. This is one of the pleasures of childhood, the project launched on a whim after you've finished your homework.

outmaneuver
He's almost one. He's got a healthy baby face. As such, he needs to keep ducking away from people who screech Those cheeks! and dive in with their pincers.

source
She dozes off at the table and starts humming "Frosty the Snowman." When she wakes up, she asks where the music came from. A radio? No, it's not the right season for carols. Was it us, singing?

sunk
In a voice that bears a full freight of disappointment, he lists what he thinks is wrong with the world. The words are like stones thrown into my stomach.

Week in Seven Words #103

bibliophilic
The takeout sushi and blaring battery-powered car have distracted him for long enough. He crawls to the bookcase in the corner of the room and uses a shelf to pull himself up and stand before it. We think it's wonderful that he's interested in books at his tender preliterate age, and when he starts to scratch the spines of the books, up and down, it looks like he's trying to break through them to get to the good stuff inside. One of his older siblings tells us that he likes scratching them because of the funny sounds they make, a raspy choir of book spines; we shouldn't start calling him a scholar yet. But maybe that's how a kid starts loving books, because of the weird sounds and sensations, the look and feel of them.

concealing
Snow coming down like curtains around the world.

inspired
He tells me what he needs for inspiration. It isn't the recreation room with its tables full of old folks bent over pieces of paper. It isn't the ballet playing on the large T.V. in the corner, though he watches it from time to time with a far-off look in his eye, Romeo locked in dance with Juliet to the music of Prokofiev. What he needs is a room with a piano and sunlight and peaceful solitude.

phlebotomy
I stare out the window and pretend that the lab technician is not currently rooting around in the crook of my elbow trying to coax blood out of my vein.

propel
Blow up a balloon and pinch the end shut between your fingers. Then tape it to a straw. Slip the straw onto a wire or long piece of string, and tie the wire/string between two chairs or the walls of a room. Release the balloon. As the air flows out, the balloon-straw contraption rockets forward. Most of the time. Sometimes the balloon makes a horrible whining noise and deflates in agony without moving.

reconstructive
On Martin Luther King Day there's a sing-a-long at the nursing home. The pianist and singer, who isn't much younger than the residents, grew up in the segregated South. The audience, mostly wheelchair-bound and living in different states of lucidity and coherence, were a part of that era too; it's likely that there are civil rights protesters and activists among them, and people who went to hear King speak. Some of them remember, and for others this is a pleasant interlude of songs unconnected to anything past or future. But often they know the words; the words and melodies and sentiments of old beloved songs stay with them even when other things crumble.

subterrane
People expect cutesyness from young kids. They want to imagine that a first or second grader for instance doesn't have any serious fears or frighteningly complicated thoughts. Probably because as adults we often can't handle those kinds of thoughts well ourselves, and we hope that children won't demand more of us than the regular pat reassurances.

Week in Seven Words #100

chocolatier
Tempting chocolate truffles in a golden box.

coordination
Group photo: fitting thirteen people on and in front of a sofa, then programming the camera's self-timer. The first couple of times nothing happens, and we sit there smiling at the camera as it stares back at us with its glossy black eye. On the third try the person adjusting the camera gets it to work but doesn't arrive back at the sofa on time, so the photo shows her from behind as she tries to dive back in next to her husband. Finally it works. After a moment's hush we cheer, and the sudden noise makes the baby startle and burst into tears.

glee
He's beaming as he rocks back and forth on the large green plastic rocking horse; it's a hand-me-down from older siblings who now sit beside him clapping and singing "Yankee Doodle Went to Town" to make him go more quickly.

invitation
Settled on a cluster of rocks by the lake, an elderly woman scatters crumbs around her and calmly greets the wheeling gulls.

perpetuity
A display at the train station shows an old-fashioned village where lights glow from little homes, happy figurines have snowball fights or glide among the evergreens on sleds, and a train travels round and round it all on a looping track. The display draws people who smile and pause to lean over it. They tip themselves for a moment into the village where everything is repeating, moving without going anywhere; no progress and no end, and for a few seconds, peace.

unplanned
There are joys planned out for them: food brought from the outside and musicians who do their best to sing beloved old songs. There are also moments of spontaneous joy that feel more real and lasting even though they're over quickly - as the party winds down they bat a balloon around; it glances off their fingers and stays airborne for a few happy minutes.

unseasonal
It's winter but feels like autumn. Turtle Pond looks like a sheet soaked in deep blue ink, and beyond it the Great Lawn is green and gold. The shadows of trees stretch out on the grass as if they're taking a leisurely nap.

Week in Seven Words #95

cornucopian
My plate has something of everything: turkey and spicy beef, mashed yams and herbed potatoes, cranberry sauce, broccoli and Brussels sprouts, and a slender wedge of potato pashtida (a Jewish/Israeli frittata/quiche type of food, cooked here without a crust). Apple cider is served for drinks, and for dessert there's some of the sweet corn bread that was baking while we ate dinner.

countenance
Infants can look more solemn, critical and perceptive than the adults around them.

cupcakes
While gift-shopping at a bookstore I see cupcakes everywhere: cupcake calendars, cupcake recipe books, cupcakes on cards. Maybe there's always been a plethora of cupcake products, and I haven't noticed. Now they leap out at me in shades of pastel lavender and dark blotchy chocolate, kittenish pink and creamy white, sporting sprinkles or periwinkle candles.

offshoot
We leave the paved path by the lake and go down a muddier offshoot; damp and soft, it coils past rocks and crackling bushes with berries.

orthography
I love the painstaking way they spell and write, focusing intently on each letter as if they realize how vulnerable language is to error and miscommunication. And each word they spell correctly is a door springing open.

refraction
My new glasses seem to have finally made peace with my brain and eyes.

salvaged
She uses scrap paper, old shoeboxes, felt, string and other odds and ends for her crafts projects; things that her family might have thrown out become the cards and presents she gives them on special occasions.

Week in Seven Words #76

amphitheater
Watching The King's Speech outdoors by the Delaware River, I'm huddled knees to chest on a flight of stone steps among friends. The screen ripples slightly in the wind, and the waters beyond are a hypnotic royal blue.

bribery
He flops onto the ground and refuses to go further, but with the promise of cookies at the top of the hill he's back on his feet, grudgingly.

diversion
To stave off his fit of fussiness and tears I change his position every so often. I stand him up on the kitchen table, so he has a prime view of the backyard and of his older brother's elaborate monologue on war tactics. Then he sits on the table, his fist clutching my index finger. Next he finds himself on a soft chair, standing again on my lap and bouncing slightly to the rhythm of the William Tell Overture. I wonder what he makes of all these shifts in perspective.

grisaille
On our walk back some blocks are silent and brightly lit. Others rumble with noise and people packed around tables outdoors. The parks are shadowed and secretive. We watch the lights fade out in a church.

hiking
We find spiders, red and orange mushrooms, a bed of ferns splashed with sunshine, and trees that have tipped into the embrace of other trees. There are also slabs of rock over a trickling stream and stones set in a shaky stairwell on the hillside.

scouting
At the bookstore they fan out, searching for chapter books, picture books, bargain books on military history. Their voices drift from different pockets, across shelves, announcing discoveries and asking others to come look at curious finds.

shearing
I'm on the verge of something - I don't know what – but in spite of my fear I'd like to find out.

Week in Seven Words #68

demanding
In the potted shrub by the doors of the hotel there's a bird's nest where the chicks are cheeping, clamoring for food from their harried parents.

hoof
The purple, pink, and periwinkle ponies are prancing.

plank
Sometimes you can hop back from what you did and undo it to some extent; other times it feels like you're walking the plank, and the ocean is stirring hungrily.

retrospection
They watch a video of themselves when they were younger. In the video one of them is a two-year-old with a skeptical frown and piping voice, a love of books and balloons; the other is a newborn – swaddled, sleepy, the oblivious center of attention.

self-absorbed
Pigeons in the station underground, strutting single-mindedly.

whee
Though he gets how to play Chutes and Ladders he doesn't seem to mind the setbacks - he enjoys making his game piece go down those long fun colorful slides.

X-wing
It's not the first time we've seen Star Wars. We know what happens. Yet there we are side by side on the couch, eyes riveted to the screen as we track Luke Skywalker's progress along the trench in the Death Star.

Week in Seven Words #67

anecdotal
We have the table near the fish tank, and over sushi and beef dumplings we tell funny stories and clink our glasses in a toast.

bedrock
On a blue breezy day we scramble among the rocks that overlook the lake.

greeting
A moment after I step out of the elevator, they emerge from another one. It's a wonderful surprise; they were on their way to meet me, and now I get to see them even sooner than I expected.

irenic
Candles at one end of the table, and in the window a rose pink sunset.

oasis
It's a gift-wrapped day, an oasis in a week that's mostly desert. I spend the day with people I love - walking, exploring, reading, talking.

pachycephalosaurs
Also called bone-headed dinosaurs, something that makes us giggle as we read through the dinosaur book.

suckle
In my arms he fidgets, grumbles, sucks on the lapel of my jacket and cries when it fails to nourish him.

Week in Seven Words #54

animatronics
Row after row of students taking an exam. Their movements are mostly confined to their seat-space. They look stiff, and their limbs twitch. Each movement seems painstaking, as if they've been programmed to move in fixed ways - slight adjustments of their head and spine, their feet occasionally fluttering nervously (an impending malfunction?), their hands hovering over the page.

biceps
Thick stacks of paper like concrete blocks, lugged around in a box or in grocery bags.

bubbly
Though we have permission to stay as long as we like, it still feels a little funny - but still pleasant - to hang around in a house that isn't ours and finish off the last third of a bottle of sparkling wine as we talk past midnight.

lasagna
Veggie lasagna with soft warm cheese, savored in a narrow wedge of time between errands and class.

lignin
In the back room of the cafe - wood panels, wooden beams, a creaky wood floor, sunlight on the glasses and the white tablecloth. A painting of a white dog, looking distant and benign.

newborn
He is small and lovely and brings joy.

sibling
She is excited, tells me with a thrill how tiny he is, how his toenails are smaller than her earrings.

Week in Seven Words #39

bullion
Golden bars of sunlight on deep green grass.

cachinnate
When I learn with her, and we're sitting with our books in front of us, we tend to laugh, sometimes a lot. It seems that the laughter is what I remember the most afterwards.

groundwork
Infants are often thought of as amoral; they might squirm, smile, cry, babble, explore, but making a judgment about another person's actions might seem to be beyond their capacities. As it turns out, there's evidence that infants younger than a year do show preferences for people (and characters) who are helpful and kind to another person over those who hinder and thwart; from what I recall they also prefer people who remain neutrally uninvolved to those who actively undermine another person's efforts (and prefer those who actively help to those who remain uninvolved). Rudiments of morality, good deeds and a sense of justice are there, even before they can speak.

regard
He speaks quite eloquently about love. Not love in the sense of falling head over heels, or getting swept away, or any other conception of love that involves losing one's mind or will to passions that are beyond personal control. He speaks about love as a choice and commitment, as something that deepens and grows throughout life, that glows inside of a healthy self and spreads outwards in ever-widening circles.

stalwart
A son of one of the Bielsky brothers talks about his father's and uncles' experiences leading a Jewish partisan group against Nazis and Nazi collaborators in Eastern Europe and saving over 1200 Jews (young, old, healthy, sick, men, women, and children). Several thoughts come out of the talk - the human spirit and human courage are amazing; heroes are flesh-and-blood imperfect people; and what's it like to live with this family legacy, to be the son and nephew of people who did things like that? (From this speaker I sense deep pride but also, especially when he was younger, a need to prove that he too has guts and can live up to the family name.)

unmotivated
Friday afternoon. People's primary concern seems to be whether there's any coffee or cookies left.

waxy
Yellow leaves on slicked pavement.

Week in Seven Words #12

blotchy
Outside the bookstore an academic journal lies half-propped against the curb, its cover grazing the tires of a parked car. The pages are swollen with rain, and certain words glisten in deep black.

buoyancy
Candles, silver, grapes, iced cakes, jellybeans, and chickpeas. We pack into the dining room and pass around drinks ("l'chaim, l'chaim"). As the newborn sleeps upstairs, his great-uncle talks to the guests about the tremendous potential we each have in life to do good.

hi
Her email is a golden droplet. "Hi" is the only word she writes, and I understand the tentative hopeful tone (the question mark that follows); the last time I heard from her was two years ago. But for the moment nothing else needs to be said.

retreat
Different ways to dig in one's heels against demands, responsibilities, the press of time. One person watches clips from Beatles concerts, marvels at the music and how wild the crowds were. Another oversleeps, and at dinner takes pleasure slowly eating slices of beet from a plastic cup. A third slips into computer games as a warrior with esoteric skills.

treat
On top of the pink-frosted cupcake sits a strawberry that was dipped in dark chocolate. As I peel the strawberry off, some frosting clings to it in small pink splodges. My first bite is a burst of fruit, bittersweet chocolate, and hyper-sugary pink.

unease
Dark stairwells lead down to doors we can't see. Windows are boarded, black plastic bags slither along the sidewalk, and at the street corner in a warehouse some bright lights flicker and machines hum. Of the houses, one front stoop seems welcoming, with fairy lights, wind chimes, and a fold-out chair (we wonder who lives in that house, and if they ever sit out on the stoop this late, when the street is eerie and nearly deserted).

welcome
We're jigsaw puzzle pieces, curiously shaped, and we prefer not to lock ourselves rigidly in place; once a jigsaw puzzle is put together there's no room for any new pieces. What we like is to laugh and talk and scuffle in the box, and welcome anyone who wants to hop in.

Week in Seven Words #8

assortment
We're the ones who don't fit neatly anywhere. Off the main room with the bright lights and song and long tables, we're in the semi-dark, five or six of us, whoever wants to drift in and talk about anything, from holiday plans to obscure historical details, and whether it's possible to both be cynical and hold onto cherished ideals. We're in the side room with the books, leftover crackers, and the windows facing sunset; in key ways we're beautifully different from one another, but seeking similar things - the pleasure of good conversation, along with room to slouch and stretch out our legs.

budding
The darling buds of March. They're set, in shades of light pink, against backdrops of gray sky or drab brick; they're framed by windows, where they seem to be looking in with rapt attention. Some trees have already flowered open, but on others the buds hold tight to themselves as long as possible; I'm expecting them to be especially spectacular when they finally yield to the season.

pantomime
To help someone out with a project, I agree to be photographed carrying out a number of different actions - playing cards, getting chased, sipping from a cup, reclining in a chair. I also need to mimic angry and violent actions - punching and kicking. I find it difficult to act those out, because I keep cracking up; I don't look angry enough. Finally I manage it but even then it feels like a comic sort of anger, as if I'm a cartoon character with steam coming out of my ears.

signal
He wants me to give him a signal if he's getting to be too long-winded in front of the guests. The signals we discuss range from the relatively subtle - three taps to the side of my nose, a beseeching stare - to the more obvious, like throwing my head back and letting out a huge groan.

steeped
The short thin raincoat isn't enough against the downpour. The rain soaks into my jeans and sweatshirt sleeves. I wear the rain on my skin for hours, cool against my thighs and wrists and the slope of my shoulders.

terrace
A light dinner beneath a peach and gray sky; the breeze for the most part is mild and pleasant. I sit alone and eat slowly. I stop often to sip my root beer and lean back in my chair.

underestimated
Very young infants are often underestimated. But there's so much that they can do, and many things that they're primed to learn. They have certain cognitive structures in place. They can pick up contingencies about the properties of the world and its objects. As the weeks fly by after birth, they show an ability to reason (in their own elusive, nonverbal way) about events in the world. The glimpses we get into their minds reveal amazing processes.