A Handshake Between Souls

I love smiling...so much so, that there are some people who think I take it to extremes! Not that I let their remarks bother me...as long as I'm reasonably certain that I don't have the remnants of my last meal on my teeth, there is precious little that can stop me from grinning.

I discovered the magic of the human smile in a fantastic story by Antoine de Saint Exupery in the first volume of "Chicken Soup for the Soul". If you haven't read it, I recommend that you do so at the soonest possible; it is truly a life-changing narrative, despite the brevity of its content. Ever since I read it, it became a lot easier to smile...and to mean it. The smile that I'm talking about is not the sarcastic curl of the lip, the self-important smirk or the forced grimaces that we have to put on when forced to attend social gatherings that we had to be dragged to, kicking and screaming. What I'm talking about is the genuine phenomenon, seen most profusely in babies' faces, typically when a loved caregiver comes into contact with them. That, without question, is the truest form of a smile...the instantaneous point of contact between two spirits and there is nothing else quite like it. Have you ever paid attention to the wave of affection that flows into you when a child's face lights up at the sight of your face? If you have, you will know when I say that it is simply overwhelming! When was the last time you experienced that with another person, regardless of his/her age?

To put it simply...I smile a LOT! At friends, at family, at parents pushing their toddlers around the supermarket in the shopping carts, at the elderly people I encounter in a park...u name the person and I've flashed my (reasonably white) teeth at them!

Which reminds me, one of the things I've come to cherish is a quaint relationship that revolves only around a smile...

There is an apartment block not too far from mine, in the residential complex in which I live. One of the short-cuts I take to reach the main road, takes me to the gate of this apartment block, where I must pass the security post. It is at this point, which I cross in about 5 seconds, that I meet the old watchman of who mans the post. I've passed by him countless times over the last few years and I still don't know his name (if he knows mine you could knock me over with a feather!). I've never spoken a single word to him and he has never uttered a sound in my presence either. Yet, somehow, if I don't see him when I pass through those gates, I get the feeling that something is missing...an odd sense of incompleteness...

I don't remember when it first started, but each time we see each other, we just smile...and he's got one of the most peaceful and affectionate smiles you could imagine. It stretches from ear to ear and reaches his eyes instantly... and I cannot help but reciprocate it, in kind! This grey-haired fellow in his black watchman's uniform, trimmed with red, has the uncanny ability to add a touch of magic to my life in the brief span of time in which I walk past him. It just makes me feel special, somehow and instantly takes away the feeling of existential isolation that occurs when one is away from the company of kith and kin or not-so-far-away from the 'madding crowd'.

So, the next time you smile, try smiling at someone you don't know at all (if nothing else, do it humour me!)... and do it like it's going out of fashion in the next minute...believe me, you'll be pleasantly surprised when a complete stranger returns it so fully that you wonder if you've met before!