Actually...

I don’t remember the first time I used the word, actually, that magical twist of fact and nuance... I imagine I was trying to dodge responsibility. “Actually, I think Jenny left the basement freezer door open.” or maybe I was trying to skitter around the edges of a hard truth. "Actually, I might have gone down there looking for a chocolate bar, maybe..."

I do remember the first time my kids used it. To hedge. “Actually, no. I didn’t brush my teeth..” (Even though I told you I had). and “Actually, this movie is not my favorite. Can we watch the Bird Cage again?” This was a verbal breakthrough. I celebrated their entry into the wonderful world of subtleties.

I used this flexible little word in front of Anna yesterday when, like thousands of north americans, I walked out of the bank empty handed. “Actually, I didn’t get cash out of the cash machine,” I said, as if I'd simply decided against putting money in my wallet at the last minute. I shrugged. Told the little girl standing outside the ATM begging for money for a good cause that she was strategically stationed but to no avail, and we went on our merry way... to the grocery store that accepts Visa. As we walked down the street, I shimmied between dry panic and wet comfort. Here we were, after all, my daughter and me, trucking down a vibrant street trailing our walking cart, the way groovy city folks do, preparing to pick up the makings for dinner. Me chatting. She singing. Me masking the panic. She squeezing my hand and pointing out the moon between two buildings.

“It’s okay.” That’s what the woman at the checkout counter said, which is when I realized that I was bent over, furrowing my brow trying to see the letters on her little machine pop up with that full-filling word: “Approved.” I looked at her. She had short, dark hair and a pock-marked face. She didn’t wear a trace of makeup, which I find unusual in a grocery clerk. She was about my age, but maybe younger, having lived a life that made her look older. I smiled at her, and she smiled back an expression of such grace and warmth that I could only stutter, “I didn’t know.” The clerk smiled again and made sure our bags of milk found their way to the bottom of our pull cart, then moved on to the next customer.

“It’s okay,” she’d said. She meant our credit card. She’d meant “Actually ... in fact. in reality..... and against all the evidence... it’s going to be okay.“

Her warmth followed us down the block, past the park, where we paused and gawked at the silhouette of this still-new-to-us city. “Wow,” Anna said as the lights glittered down town, shining buttons running up and down building after building. And then, “Woa that’s a lot of electricity.”

We had all the food we needed by then. Were pulling it behind us. And so I felt secure again, and hopeful, after three days of not being able to take cash out. I still couldn’t shop in the low-cost store nearest us. That store, with its inconsistent stock and stark refusal to be helpful, requires more certainty from its customers. (“Actually, we need cash”). But my credit card worked just fine at the uptown stores.

Which is how I got to meet that clerk. That promise of humanity. That carrier of outsize grace that creeps into the day when we most need it; when we think we don’t have any to offer up; Actually, we still do.

When I looked up Actually online, I found two things. The definition and a movie link.

Here’s the definition:

Pronunciation:
\ˈak-ch(ə-w)ə-lē, -sh(ə-w)ə-lē; ˈaksh-lē, ˈaks-\
Function:
adverb
Date:
15th century

1 : in act or in fact : really 2: in point of fact —used to suggest something unexpected
And the movie?

Love, Actually.