I’ve been laughing a lot lately.  I mean, I’ve always had my giddy moments, and my hyperactive days.  But I’ve also, on at least 4 instances in my life, had a complete stranger come up to me – or walk by me – and say something like: “Smile hunny, smile!  You’d be so much prettier if you were smiling.” Now 4 is not a big number. If something happens just 4 times, more often than not it’s considered dismissible. But what does it say about me, if 4 separate times a complete stranger has gone out of his or her way to approach me, to speak to me!  Me, a complete stranger!  To tell me to smile.  To let me know that I look awfully sad with my lips pursed taught.  To let me know that I’d be look a whole lot prettier if I smiled.

I walked away thinking about how I carry myself, how I present myself on a daily basis, how I hold my body, my weight, my energy as I walk down the street, how I come across to complete strangers.  I recall a theater class exercise: walk around for an entire day with your lips loose, not held together.  Let your jaw unclench, let the air flow freely between the gaps of your teeth.  This was a lesson in exposing our self.  A lesson in vulnerability.   Try it.

So like the theater exercise, these individuals were noticing, in a split second, the tension, the closure, the privacy, the frigging mopiness that is me!  That is not good.

Now a days I smile at strangers.  If I bump into, or need to walk around someone in a crowded Starbucks, I look up at them with a smile as I say ‘whoops, sorry.’  You know what I used to do?  Without even noticing?  My default reaction would have been to think ‘ugh,’  perhaps glare at them, maybe even roll my eyes.  Hypocrisy, hello! Rolls reversed that old me would infuriate me.  How rude, how unnecessarily mean, unkind.

Not anymore.  And you know what?  Now, as I find myself laughing.  Deeb belly laughs.  Tears in my eyes, short of breath laughs.  Laughing fits with my boyfriend on the T, in the car ride just the two of us, in the office, on the couch.  Laughing has the power to make you so, so happy.   And laughter is contagious. Hopefully my smiles will warm the hearts of the strangers around me.