Invisible Smile

Driving to work I felt happy

This mysterious feeling

I wondered-

What does it look like as I pulled down the visor and opened the mirror.

Hmmm an invisible smile.

If I wasn’t inside me I’d never know how I was feeling. It’s a crying smile. I’m old and my smile comes up through the cracked mud of my experience.

Barely visible, what does it mean?

I’ve been happy and had joy, all through my life, but there’s no denying I’ve had a life of unbroken challenges- objectively, a hard life. But it’s what I knew and expected. I never caught a break until now. And I’m having trouble adjusting to it, letting it be, not looking for trouble, enjoying the calm.

If I had been my own mother, worrying over every turn and the toll each might take on me, I can’t imagine how hard that would be.

Yet I have adult children, and how my mother prayed for me every night unable to reduce my folly or increase my luck at all. That’s the letting go that I must do.

Grandmother smiles

Sometimes look like a frown

It’s a special power