A single smile

What a gorgeous day! Stood in the yard and counted 46 blooms on the hybrid purple dogwood (Cornus florida (perhaps 'Purple Glory'?)) - a new record for our 10+ year-old tree. Took a walk for a while. Then my legs got the better part of me and decided to take me for a short jog. Huff, huff...wheeze... Pardon me while I catch my breath.

Poets have described a smile to you so I won't get all mushy and sentimental about muscles that turn up one's lips.

In my day off between two weekdays of teaching, I wanted to pick up an old book of mine to re-read after resting from my walk-jog.

I guess old age has caught up with me and erased the fresh memories of my favorite insightful writers because I look at the titles in front of me in my study and can barely remember some of the story outlines. There's "The Trial" by Kafka, "The Tin Drum" by Grass, "A Discourse on Method" by Descartes, "Bored of the Rings" by Harvard Lampoon, "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest" by Kesey, "Silent Spring" by Rachel Carson, a collection of short stories by Nin, "Naked Lunch" by Burroughs and many others. I almost picked out "A Fan's Notes" by Frederick Exley since it had been suggested to me by the broomstraw gal but I don't want to think about her today. My constant companion from high school and college once recommended "Another Roadside Attraction" by Tom Robbins because she thought the book was my kind of vermiculture (yes, I'm stuck on "v" words the past two blog entries - must be my brain turning "April Fools" into "après vous" for some reason) but Robbins is a mood, not a novel, in which I'm not right now.

During the jogging, I paced myself on the sidewalk, assuming in the early afternoon that the slabs of concrete were all mine. Upon further observation, I noticed small insects, pollen and seeds sharing the roadside with me. After jogging a while, I also came upon an approaching subject, a young woman of medium height, slim build, dark hair and sunglasses, walking in the opposite direction.

As we passed, she flashed a quick smile at me. Almost as if she was a child who knew a camera was pointed in her direction. "Give us a big smile, honey!" Just as quickly, she moved on behind me.

I have two books sitting on the desk beside me now, "The Dragons of Eden" and "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest." I picked these books not for their storyline but for their author's writing style. I know I am a chameleon, substituting someone else's writing style in place of my own when I am reading someone else's work and writing within consecutive or nearly concurrent moments. Therefore, after I finish this blog entry, I'll sit down and read. I'll let you decide which book I chose.

What, if anything, does the young woman I saw today read? Her looks appear to reveal similar cultural upbringing. What put her out walking around 13:15 - baby asleep at home? Exercising after lunch? What kind of character would she make, should I sketch her with these words? Healthy body. Young. Living in a neighborhood of relatively new homes. Gathers with other new mothers for child-rearing tips. Keeps a clean house, relatively speaking. Earned a degree in mathematics in college but deferred career due to planned parenthood. Husband working in town, a promising business/engineering career ladder ahead of him. Glad the economy hasn't hurt their budget (yet). A future mapped out in front of her. Sees boredom, accepts boredom as part of regular middle-class values and finds simple ways to keep boredom from overtaking her thoughts.

Yesterday, a middle-aged door-to-door salesman named "Hunter" stopped by my house to sell ADT security systems. I hadn't seen a door-to-door salesman in so long, I was surprised they still existed. We talked briefly on the front deck while I listened to see how well he had memorized his sales pitch. He seemed a bit intimidated and never fully jumped at the opportunities I gave him, except one. That's the problem with being a former door-to-door salesman - my ear for the steps to a sale. I avoided the open-ended questions and steered him toward asking me yes/no questions like "What about theft?" and "What about fire?" The conversation quickly ended with my telling him that we're just poor country folk trying to get by (when I repeated the story last night, my wife reminded me that statement didn't match my BMW sitting in the driveway - so be it). I didn't give him a chance to work on closing the sale (actually, a "free" demonstration that started with, "Hi, we're looking for two neighbors we can stick ADT signs in their yard. In return, we'll install and demonstrate a $1500 security system for free." Oh, and that fine print about monthly service fees is conveniently left out of the opening statement, but I'm sure Hunter would have gotten to that later.).

I don't know the Willy Loman or Suzy Homemaker who bumped into my personal space. I only know what I saw. In both cases, they flashed smiles at me, smiles one doesn't usually see from strangers on busy city sidewalks or front stoops.

Perhaps in my reading, I'll understand what they mean to me, if anything. We're humans. That's certain. A smile is just a set of muscles controlled by the brain. It means whatever the brain wants it to mean. In the meaning is the story. In the story is where I live.