Musing #1 - The Pup-Gap
I almost adopted a dog today from Safe Refuge of Central Texas, but someone got him first. I suppose they helped me dodge a scruffy, fluffy little bullet. It’s hard enough trying to figure out a part time move and finding a place in London that’ll let me bring Rocky and GMan. The timing isn’t optimum with my level of travel and work.
I think wanting a new dog is a result of a new wave of missing Tux; complete with sporadic crying jags. Missing his compact little body, his high alert stance, his circle dances, shadowing me through the house. And his happy smile.
Musing #2 -Smile Manifesto
Speaking of smiles—people smiles—that is: I tried to count how many times a day I smiled and couldn’t keep up. And started to wonder why some people won’t smile. Of all the micro, accessible actions at our disposal, a basic tool everyone has is…a smile. No matter what human strata or compartment they exist in. It’s the easiest thing in the world—unless one is being a phony. I suppose there’s always an exception.
Smile talk might make you think of those inspirational block-lettered text boxes some people like to post on their Instagrams. Or those needlework things embroidered with sayings. Trite and obvious but true. My smile manifesto won’t fit in a text box, but there are reams of them, so it’s just as well.
I lost count counting mine because I smile a lot. I smile at baristas, at clerks, at waiters and waitresses, just about anyone I have to interact with during the course of a day. I smile at strangers, when someone catches me looking at them or I catch them looking at me. I smile as I think, read, and when I watch TV.
Many years ago, I noticed my mom looked sad when she was expressionless, so I consciously began training my face in repose to have a slight-smile. (The things we learn from our moms.) I even arrange a smile on my face when I’m trying to fall asleep at night.
I smile because it’s so damn easy and it works and it feels good. It familiarizes strangers. Smiling improves my looks way better than cosmetic surgery could ever hope to accomplish. Smiling is the right shape, the right opening for a better self to emerge. It gives our best intentions a clearly designated exit. A smile overlays memories and present experiences in a beauty-filter-Vaseline-lens glow that radiates in our souls, like a kitty’s purr. What else is so freaking easy?
Musing #3 - Elijah vs Me
It’s such a little refracted rapture of life to feel known and understood by another person. We assume this is a given from our friends, the ones we seek out and keep close. But friends don’t always know you as well as they think, or as you think they do. It can be a real jolt to discover this, despite long years of friendship. A misunderstanding or disagreement or a conversation gone a little askew—and then you realize: we are friends, and will remain so—but. She/he/they do not really get me.
Nothing diminishes a well-timed and well-placed era of being in love. I’ve had some major love affairs—but relationships can be dished out with large portions of passion and attraction, grow up big and healthy (or unhealthy) from compatibility and enjoying a shared life. You might not even realize how this person you love and who loves you back doesn’t really get you until you move on and meet the one who does.
The one who gets me more than anyone I’ve ever known is my daughter.
On Mother’s Day, Audrey gave me a stunning essay that I read in tears and have reflected on many times in the weeks since. She’s a beautiful writer, with her own very unique voice and way with words.
My written gift had a lot of the code talk that only people who really know each other can understand. She wrote of me “cracking the Elijahs of the world” going on to say that I saw the world itself as being a big Elijah I needed to crack. This is code for a barista—Elijah—who refused to smile or be receptive to my friendliness. I swore repeatedly to her that in time, I’d pierce his indifference.
Once I ordered my coffee and tried singing this to him. It’s Charley Pride’s huge hit from 1969, and I’ve always remembered it, and I’ve always until this very day thought he was wailing “ELIJAH.” You can’t blame me—that’s exactly what it sounds like. But this is actually a cover of a Hank Williams song; Kaw-Liga and it’s about a wooden Indian, and that’s the name he’s singing. Go figure.
Anyway, I don’t know if barista Elijah knew I was bastardizing Charley Pride’s song to sing Elijah at him, I highly doubt it—but nevertheless, when I asked him if people sang that song to him all the time—which of course NO ONE ever had—he looked at me with flat, bored eyes.
“No.”
It took 2 years to get a smile from Elijah but I finally got one. Then he left.
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