Smiling and Cooking
I walked to the bakery this morning from my home at the top of the valley. Trotted down the steep, frozen concrete, right down the middle of the road. Very few cars ever drive by, and if one were to arrive, I’d be able to hear it from quite a distance. Still, this is a rural place, and my eyes nervously move faster than my mind does. I look for bears through the trees, for hunters, or men. As if the woods to either side of this road are just margins of dangerous possibilities. Where my body could be lost, or forgotten.
My face is marked by memories of fear. Like some synthetic freeze, or Botox, my face is still. My jaw stiffens when I am alone out in the world. Clenched by the effort of trying not to emote.
As I walked, I felt the wind push me, and I liked it. I squinted into the white morning light, and I liked that too. I heard water trickle down the edges of the road, it is my most favorite sound. I heard familiar bird songs that I could not place, and I paused because I loved the sound. I heard flat orange leaves toss and turn, and paper cut each other. I took a deep breath in because it sounded good. I heard my breath against the cold air most of all. I was a little late, so I was panting. My whole body was warm. Even though I noticed all of this, and fell in love with all of this, my face stayed still.
When I got to the bakery, I put my mask on and said good morning to everybody. I smiled so intensely, my face creaked.
Then it was time to bake the bread. I washed my hands, set up the dough hooks, gathered the yeast, flour buckets, and scales. There was nothing much on my mind as I worked, except the sweet smell of yeast, which I loved. I felt the heat of the oven as I walked by. There were drifting snow flurries that I saw out the window. Snowflakes kissed the warmer river. It was so beautiful. I took my jacket off. My body was comfortable and I felt safe. I wasn’t searching the kitchen for bears or hunters. Even so, the expression on my face did not change, not until someone or other came by to greet me.
So it struck me. Like a kitten who only meows for attention. I witnessed the absence of expression across my lips when no one was around. My fear had bleached into my skin like a habit. Even though I learned as a child that it takes less energy to smile than it does to frown.
On the weekends, I chop vegetables in a kitchen half an hour away from here. I work beside friends, and the time passes quickly. My smile is easy while my hands are distracted. I smile so much as we speak, that when it is time to eat lunch, I have a hard time remembering how to chew.
Behind my station in the kitchen, there is a window space built into the wall. A woman stops by with her dog every now and then. The woman greets us kindly, and we give the dog little treats, like butter papers to lick. When they go outside, I sometimes see them out the screen-less picture window. She walks around the frozen garden, or to the compost, or to her car. Even when she is alone, the woman smiles. Even when she walks across the thick ice that coats the driveway.
I do not know her at all, but she is teaching me. Watching her smile at the ice, at the sky, at seemingly nothing at all, has helped me understand that I tend to only smile when I think I can be perceived. Which made me realize that I treat so much of what I encounter with much less respect than thought.
Each time I see her walking out the window, she looks like she is greeting someone she loves. When I greet someone I love, sometimes I try to play it cool. I might say, What’s up? Instead of, God, I missed you.
What if I stopped asking my face to lie. Nothing to prove, nothing to lose, nothing at all going on except a near-winter day.
My resolution for this year has been to learn how to smile. I have always been too insecure to do so freely, ashamed of my crooked yellow teeth. But it feels so good to smile, when there is a reason to. Suppressing a smile is like suppressing a sneeze. The joy gets sticky and bunched. It might even shift into numbness.
The purpose of my smile is not to pacify others, entice others, or change others in any way. My smile is just a way for me to share the truth of my heart at any moment. When I smile, my eyes squint a bit, and I become aware of the frame of my eyelids. The border of my lids and lashes shifts the light of day, making the light cinematic. Through this lens, I notice more reasons to smile.
I am not asking myself to learn to be happy all the time, or grateful even. I’m sure the woman outside with the dog and the smile cries sometimes too. I just want to be as honest with the wind as I am with good company. I am allowed to love whatever I love.
I couldn’t care less about cooking good food lately. I’m just living my life and the food is happening. Unselfconscious, shameless loving inevitably makes everything taste divine. Chewing through a smile ;-)