SMILES THAT DIM THE SUNLIGHT | redclaydiary.com

Catch Jim’s 4-minute podcast on youtube: https://youtu.be/Jwmr-IIBbfY

or read the transcript below:

Life, actually…

SMILES THAT DIM THE SUNLIGHT

Here’s something to ponder. That is, here’s something to ponder if you happen to be in a pondering mood.

I’m about to ponder, so let this be a warning to you. If this is not your Ponder Day, maybe you can avoid a preponderance of ponder by skipping today’s Red Clay Diary. There may be much better ways to spend the next four minutes.

For us, the stragglers who decide to stick around and see what the Reed guy has to say, here it is:

I am squinting at the front door of my little bookshop. Squinting because the outside sunlight behind an entering customer is brighter than the customer herself. I can’t make her out against the competing glare.

Still, I do what I think is the right and polite thing to do, I greet the customer with a smile and a “How are you today?”

The customer scours the merry clutter of the store to locate the source of my genetically deep and loud voice.

She spies me, then responds to the friendliness within my words. Suddenly the light of day reverses itself. That’s because her smile dims all sunlight and brightens her surroundings. Sunlight is secondary for a moment.

“I’m fine, how are you?” she replies.

“I feel great because I’m in a bookstore,” I say.

She adds a giggle of recognition to her smile and begins her awe-filled journey into the interior, her smile illuminating the darkened aisles.

As all book people are aware, there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in most philosophies. (My apologies to Billy Shakespeare.)

I am taken by this person’s smile. I am taken aback. I am reminded of all the many smiles, light and dark, broad and fleeting, slow and startling, joy-filled and slightly sad, self-conscious and uninhibited…all the many smiles that have graced my life throughout these flowing years.

This customer’s smile reminds me that I have not always taken time to appreciate the unconscious gifts of happiness that visitors offer me. How could they possibly realize the effect of these smiles on people like me?

A natural and spontaneous smile contains more uplifting data than a thousand words of cheer could ever absorb. No preparation or editing required. No apologies or clarifications needed. No politics or wayward beliefs need intrude. No challenges or arguments or explanations are on the agenda.

Just a good smile.

I don’t need an interpretation or explanation or retraction. I just need to enjoy the smile, enjoy the effects of the smile, enjoy the moment no-one can take away from me.

Is this too thoughty to ponder today? Or is it OK to take a mo’ and simply recognize the smiles that are dormant within us? Is it OK to grant permission to the interior smile, permission to surface, take over the face, turn the frown upside down? Just smile?

I’ve had my say. Now I think I will take a few seconds to appreciate the Land of Smiles. Now I can hope that, despite all disturbances to the contrary, you, too, can be amazed at how easily that buried smile can rise up and give you hope, if only in your dreams