smiles

This morning I was walking from my car to the office. I was mostly looking down, thinking. I wasn't unhappy, but I was thinking about a number of things that weren't particularly happy, either.
* My hip and elbow still hurt from the hard fall I took on Saturday. A part of me thinks I'm acting like a baby since the injuries weren't that bad, but I had just bumped both on the car getting out and was made aware, again, that I am too old to be falling out of cars onto pavement.
* I am behind in several work projects. Some of them I like (the book project with Jeff) and some I am struggling with (readings for a global and cultural awareness/physical science class I am to teach next fall). Some have deadlines (two papers for NCTE next month) and some just need to be done soon (grad school recommendations for former students).
* I was thinking of family birthdays coming up, Thanksgiving, and Christmas--all need me to do something.
* EEK. I just remembered I have stake training to prepare for on November 7.
So, I was walking along, thinking about these things and the cold wind.

When I pass people, I generally look up quickly to give a small smile. This morning, one of those quick looks found the face of a student with a HUGE, genuine smile. She said "Hello!" in a cheery voice. I smiled back. I had to. Her smile was so big that to do anything else would have just been rude. And I felt my spirits literally lift. My face felt stiff, but my spirits felt lightened. I smiled the rest of the way to my office--and I started thinking about smiles and how they make people happy and how they are contagious.

I did just a little inquiry on smiling and found out some interesting facts:
* They have lots of health benefits (including decreasing stress, increasing productivity, and killing pain).
* A smile can increase attention (think of a classroom of smiling students--they would all be attentive!) and improve chances for success, since others see a smile as a mark of confidence.
* A smile can take about three years off your age and makes you more attractive.
* BUT the benefits only work if the smile is genuine. Fake smiles don't use the same muscles (especially around the eyes) and don't have quite the same effect. So, we should try to make our smiles as genuine as possible.

And then I started thinking about things that make me smile. And I thought I would put this link in here (laughing babies always make me smile) and some pictures of some of my grandchildren smiling (they always make me smile, too) with the hope that this post will bring smiles to readers and make them healthier and happier, too! Maybe we can spread smiling around a lot more. Here's a smile for you!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L49VXZwfup8

fall leaves

When I was a little girl in elementary school, I loved to collect fall leaves. I would use them in all sorts of crafts. My favorite use was ironing them between sheets of waxed paper to use for fall place mats.  (I would glue the sheets of leaves onto large pieces of orange or brown construction paper). I don't know what my mother (or anyone else) thought of them. I thought she'd think they were beautiful (maybe they were--but my mental picture of them is a little fuzzy) and that I was creative. Thinking from a mom's perspective now. . .  maybe she was happy for me to be busy?  (I seem to remember I always had to either have a book or a project or something. I wasn't the sitting still kind of child unless there was a book.) Or maybe she thought about the mess. I don't know. I do know that one late fall, I arrived home from school to face a question: What is the smell coming from your room? It turned out to be a bag full of rotting leaves I had collected and then shoved under my bed for use later--and forgotten. I wasn't allowed to bring bags of leaves ito the house anymore.

I hadn't thought of these experiences for years. And then, last week, walking across campus I saw these leaves on the ground:

Something about the size (these are big leaves, like the ones from my childhood) and the shape (maple?) brought all the memories of my childhood leaf-colllecting rushing back. The nostalgia was enormous. How long has it been since I jumped in a pile of leaves, purposely stepped on them to hear the crunch, studied them for the perfect blend of color and shape, made something with them--even a table decoration? A long time. I'm glad I have the memories (and glad they come back), but sometimes I miss what is left behind, too.

life's traumas

My daughter sent me this picture last night:

It is her daughter, not quite 2 years old, having a little sad time, because, after all, life is REALLY hard when you are one year old.

Seeing her made me smile. I don't know what made her sad--she wanted a cookie and mom said no? she wanted a toy and her sister wouldn't share? she's tired? The reasons seem trivial to me, but they are not to her, and even though I smile, I know that.

Instead, I think of how I respond to some of the things that happen in my life that I am not happy about. They are bigger than not getting a cookie snack or getting to play with a coveted toy. . . to me. But in the eternal perspective, I wonder if they really are that much bigger? Or am I (symbolically) collapsing in a chair with my head in my hands over a cookie? I should think about that sometimes when I am having my own (adult) version of this image. In the meantime, I will keep smiling over the dramatic sadness of a little child.

looking closely

When my grandson was visiting me, he decided that we needed to be detectives. We had "mysteries" to solve! And we needed magnifying glasses to solve our mysteries! We finally found some after visiting several stores, and we used them to look closely at the world around us. We didn't end up solving a lot of mysteries, but we had fun looking at leaves and bugs and tree trunks.

He's gone back home now, and I've been thinking about how interesting it was to pause and look closely at the world around us. I spent some of last weekend at Daniel's Summit on a retreat with our writing project site. As part of our time there, we walked around the mountain and then wrote about what we saw. I tried to look closely and here are some of the beauties I observed, things I might have missed if I hadn't been looking closely. I wrote a haiku--even though I am not good at them--to push myself to reflect on what I thought about what I saw.

Water warm or cold
bubbles and melts and edges.
Beauty in details

random things

Sometimes things catch my eye. And I wonder.

I was driving behind a truck carrying a big bunch of outhouses. I kept my distance (except to take the picture) because I couldn't help but wonder what would happen if that one strap, holding that last outhouse on the edge of the bed (see it hanging over a bit?), snapped. What would happen to me? I assumed (hoped?) they were empty, but they might not have been!  I was thinking about the guy(s) who loaded them on and what they were thinking: "Hey, if we stick this one last one on, hanging off a bit, but roped to the others, we could save ourselves some time. Maybe save us another trip!"

I saw this lunch container one day on the grass. I didn't think much about it. After all, it seemed like something someone might have missed picking up if they'd been sitting on the grass, eating lunch. I thought they would be back to get it when they realized it was missing, so I left it there. The next evening, as I walked to the parking lot to go home, I saw the box, the same one--I could tell by the remnants inside. It was sitting on a retaining wall, right there, obvious, as if it were saying "Look at me! Here I am!" But it was a significant distance from where it had been on the grass. Not really in the same area at all. That's what got me thinking (and stopping to take a picture): why was it so far from where it had been the day before?  I started wondering about the person who'd carried it there. They could have thought: Someone will miss this. If I put it on this wall where it attracts attention, that person will see it and remember and be glad to have found what was lost. (it was a very nice container). But what if that person didn't walk by that corner? The box had originally been left in a spot that allowed for lots of paths going to and from. What the person thinking to pick it up and carry it some distance before leaving it here. Had they really planned to take it home and then thought better of it? 

A bigger wondering is this one: 

 I saw this staged battle between green and brown army guys on the short wall that borders the stairs to lower campus. Someone had obviously arranged the scene for people who passed by. As I stopped to look, and then lingered to take a picture, I couldn't help but wonder: was the person watching to see how people reacted to the display? Was I part of a study or television show or YouTube video? I didn't see anything suspicious, but as I walked away and for many days later, I looked wherever I went to see another display of army guys in battle. After all, the person who put them there had to have more, right? 

So, I am wondering about wondering. I am glad I paused these three times to take a picture of something that made me wonder. Too often, we go through life really fast, not taking time to notice let alone wonder about the world around us. I know I do. I walk fast, thinking of my next destination, my next obligation. I walk with phone in our hands, texting or emailing or facebooking as I walk. Not really in the here and now. Not smelling the smells of the season or seeing the little smile-sights around me. In some ways, maybe the people behind these three shots knew that and wanted to give others a moment to stop, think, and smile. I did. And I am reminded I should do that more often. 

it's that time again

There are signals during the year, sights and sounds and smells that make us recognize the coming of a regular event. I love the sound of Christmas music before Christmas, the pumpkins that dot front porches in autumn, the smell of barbecue that shouts "Summer!"

I've been in a rush lately, so even though at some level I knew it was coming, I had missed the signs that another one of those regular events was upon us. Until I saw this yesterday:

It's the week of the big rivalry game, so, of course, all the statues on campus are wrapped in plastic. It's as much a part of the ritual game as tail-gating and painting faces blue, I think. I don't know if the rival campus has to take similar measures. I hope not, but I know emotions run high at these times. It's both sad and funny. Sad that competition moves some to deface property and funny that we identify SO strongly with an institution that a small group of people from that institution playing a game with a ball and helmets comes to represent the whole. Whoever wins is the best. Let's not mention cancer research or graphic design contests or numbers of students who go on to graduate school or any of the other criteria universities generally use to measure quality. It all comes down to this: pigskin and grunts and tackles and passes and touchdowns.

And a bad part: whoever wins this time has bragging rights for a l-o-n-g time, since the two teams won't meet annually any more. Sad in some ways. But I can look at it this way: we can save a lot of plastic that doesn't have to wrap about Brigham and Carl.

puzzled

I found this puzzle piece on the sidewalk a while ago. It intrigued me. All by itself. Without its partners or friends or neighbors. I wondered how it came to be there, alone. I wondered what it was part of. I picked it up, carried it to my office, and put it on my desk where I see it everyday.

 And in the days since, I have thought about it. I wondered if I was part of a project. You know. . . drop puzzle pieces around campus and see if people 1) notice them, 2) pick them up, 3) find the other pieces and put the puzzle back together. I have seen other ideas like this. A desk on a city street, with a sign encouraging passersby to sit and write a letter. A brick wall in sad part of town and paint, inviting sharing of six-word memoirs. Am I supposed to be looking for others who have pieces to this puzzle? How would I go about that? And even if I don't ever find the picture that this piece is part of, I still wonder.

What is the big picture? It's hard to tell from my piece. Maybe it's the grass in the background of a picture of a lion. Maybe it's the field behind a small white farmhouse. It could be most anything. By itself. And how is the picture complete without this section of grass or field? I wonder.