Smiles

I've had to do a lot of shopping the past few days and I noticed that many people aren't wearing masks, including me. It struck me that it was so nice to see entire faces after such a long time.

Since I didn't go out a lot during the pandemic, and since I'm old enough that some of my habits are deeply ingrained, I spent a lot of time smiling at my fellow shoppers behind my mask. Some of my smiles were just that small greeting I do when passing people, particularly the ones who actually make eye contact.

Then there are those almost-collisions that are so frequent in stores with shopping carts. Even when some stores tried to make the aisles one-way, they still happened when I tried to exit the aisle. Traffic never moved smoothly. One day another shopper and I nearly collided. We backed up and she said, "I'm smiling under here!"

I had to laugh. Of course, no one was seeing my smiles and I wasn't seeing theirs. It was rather a Duh! moment, but as I said, habits are hard to change. So from then on I tried to nod. Such a small change, but it was hard to remember. I also tried speaking, but I found I had to talk more loudly than I was comfortable with in order to be heard. People thought I was yelling at them. Well, I was, but not in anger.

At my last stop, I did more than one double-take. Some of the people were wearing masks that matched their skin tone. Not the blue paper masks, not the fun prints that many of us collected, but fairly plain beige and brown ones. I hadn't noticed that before. As the first one came around the corner, my brain shot me a message that this poor person had no face. Not a complete one, anyway.

The second time it happened, I told myself to get a grip.

But thinking back over the past eighteen months, we did look like expressionless zombies pacing up and down the aisles.

When you're comfortable going maskless, make an effort to go back to interacting with your fellow human beings.

Smile everyone! Smile!