Playground, after school

When does a small child begin to trust, I wonder. 

Organically. Instinctively. Little hands that know they will be fed and loved. There are no doubts or questions. There's curiosity and joy. Big hands lead them across wide city streets and into trains, airplanes, buses. Waiting outside school doors, gates, and fences. There are one-hundred sets of grins. One-hundred crooked tooth gaps. Chocolate gums. 

When does a small child begin to trust, I wonder? 

Perhaps it is in the pattern of a ham and cheese sandwich everyday at 4 o clock. I watch as they tear them apart

with tiny dirt-filled fingers and tinier minds which decide cheese can feed the ants today but the ham can stay, and I think that to be quite a particular decision for a four-year-old. The bread is picked all apart and sometimes thrown in the air and if you squint hard enough it looks like falling snow. Specks of aluminum foil land on badly drawn hopscotch squares and in the cracks of littered-covered cement; there is absolutely no care in the world. Rusty swing sets hold generations of these little sandwich stuffed bodies. Bigger bodies making them fly with a light one-handed push.  

When does a small child begin to trust, I wonder. 

When do they come to know that their falls will be followed by Neosporin

and perfectly sized adhesive bandages with princesses and frogs that promise "all the pain is gone, my love".

How do they come to believe in the hands that tie their shoes and braid their hair in perfect symmetrical lines, in the arms that lull them to sleep and shake them awake. In the diced chicken and chocolate milk cartons and gummy bear snack packs. 

They don't understand it won't always be this way.

They don't understand a whole lot. 
Little 

things. 

They see hands and feet 

and smiles and teeth. 

They feel hugs and kisses. 

And I think that's how they trust.