About that smile…

About that smile…

You know, the one that’s stayed with me for a million years (give or take a few.)

Oh, but wait, I have to OUT myself, first. Out myself? (I’m already out, for heaven sakes!) No, no, I mean out myself, as someone who rashly judged people by their appearance in my younger years. (Ouch.) Normalizing being human here, with all its many foibles. 

Back to THAT smile. In my very early 20s, I worked in a research-based institution. There was an older woman, several floors above me, who I found manifestly unattractive. To my younger eyes (I wince saying this now) she appeared to be what I would call ugly. Sigh.

HOWEVER, I began to notice this woman was always smiling. Always. In the elevator, passing through my part of the building. AND, as a walker-everyplace-I-went in those days, I realized her home was about a block from my then-apartment. So, I would frequently pass her house and when she happened to be outside, gardening, guess what I noticed? You got it! Her smile.

I actually began looking forward to seeing her. I don’t think I realized how uplifting her smile was. And even now, as I write, my lips are creeping upward, in remembrance of the warmth I felt whenever I saw her smile.

For the life of me, I can’t recall now what she really looked like. And it doesn’t matter. The incandescence of her smile over-wrote my then-judgments and continues to lift me up, even today, so many years later.