People might get the wrong impression about me. If you see me walking down the street and you smile in my direction, you might get no reaction from me until I’m practically upon you. In fact, you might interpret this lack of reaction as genuine hostility because I think my “business casual” everyday expression is one of great consternation, with the corners of my mouth turned down and a little thought-crease wiggling between my eyebrows.
I want you to know your smile is appreciated, and you should never discontinue that policy. By not immediately returning the smile I assure you I am not snubbing you, nor have I suddenly failed to remember what you look like. It’s just that I never wear my glasses in public, and contacts seem a tremendous burden to me, so I spend a lot of my time in public viewing the world through a haze of dented ocular cone cells. By the way, you all look very attractive to me. (from a distance.)
Today I had that last-minute recognition experience with my yoga instructor. (shut up!) It’s premature to call her my yoga instructor, because I’ve paid for only one class, and that was yesterday. After the class, she pulled me aside and told me my “downward dog” had improved marvelously over the course of the 90 minute class. (Is that a come-on? Please say yes.) So yes, yoga. I’m dealing with all the things that trouble me about yoga and yoga instructors, trying to repress them very deeply, while keeping all of the things that please me about the discipline. It’s nice to stand up straight, truthfully. It’s an under-rated skill.
Back to the thesis statement in that last paragraph, which I completely ignored. (Web publishing is for amateurs! Thank god.) I was walking home and my yoga instructor was, I suppose, presenting me with a giant sun salutation of a smile. The combination of my poor vision and the effect of seeing her out of context, without a yoga mat beneath her bare feet, threw me and I think in exchange for her warmth she received only a sullen grimace. Then, as we got very close, I lightened up considerably to compensate for what I feared she’d interpret as a terrible blockage of yellow light in my pelvic bowl. I smiled, said hello, and continued walking. I honestly think she expected some small talk to transpire at this moment but there was absolutely no chance of that happening. First of all, about what? Sit bones? The stink of a rented yoga mat? (Now I know why everyone buys their own.) Second, and more importantly, I was trying very hard to hide the bag I was carrying, which contained a SUBWAY 6-inch turkey sandwich on (stale) whole wheat bread. For some reason I decided she would frown upon this, as she might have frowned upon the cheeseburger, french fries and chicken wing dinner I enjoyed with my optometrist last night.
