The Value of a Smile

This week I have been incredibly touched by many interactions with strangers. On Monday, I was working at a little cafe in Mill Valley. The morning was full of writing Good News articles and my annual report. As I wrote, I was listening to music and the pace of my soul was merging with my fingertips. I felt at home, even among the bustle of strangers around me. Finally, my time was up. As I walked towards the door, a man with a distinctive presence was seated at the table by the table. He had a Santa Clause like beard and I saw in his face the look of a man with profound intellect. I smiled at him as I passed by his table, and before I reached for the door, he said: "What a beautiful smile" to me. This man did not know me. We were far apart in age and the genuineness of his comment made it obvious to me that his words were simply kind. And I was blessed! How amazing it is how we can affirm each other!

And now, it is Wednesday. I am at the Borders in Alameda. I have been typing away, answering e-mails, deleting e-mails, pondering... A man seated beside me and I struck up a conversation. He asked me to watch his chair. Therefore, I said (tongue-in-cheek), that I would beat up anyone who tried to take his chair (with a smile). He noted my sarcasm and laughed with me. As he left, he felt connected enough to say: "Well, it is time to let me leave you with other company."

How strange and amazing how one may connect with strangers. Sometimes it just takes a smile.

A Prompt from Today

I was the only one to see it. It- that long, looming, somehow scary reality: But I’ll leave it unnamed. Better to leave these things unnamed you know. I was in the coffee shop in Berkeley the other day- The one where I feel like I could be at home, if only I had more time to just bring a bagful of books and spend my day on dreaming and fantasizing about the future and those potential heroic acts that are waiting to be experienced. There, as the people in their multi-colored garb swirled before me, I hit upon a central realization: We are connected- these people and me. They- I know them not, not even their names or what drink they are enjoying, but we are all sharing these few moments of space together: Like you all with me. And so here, in the hustle-bustle of this caffeine-smelling cauldron, I realized it: It was devouring me with something like a kind of delightful passion. It was reminding me of what I needed to do in order to ever truly be myself. It was not only constituted in the threads of details in my mind but somehow lay deeper… It was the very thing that I was chasing and yet, kite-in-hand, I didn’t know how to let it—It-fly: I did not know how to listen deeply to choruses of imagination that were calling, cheering, calling—calling me into being and into the challenge of living from my truest deepest self.. into It, the future.