I sharply halted today (it did not sound good at all as for my tires) in front of a little girl who seemed to be carelessly determined to cross a street. My heart was racing, and I thought that I scared her. I could have badly hurt this kid. Phew!
So I took a few steps up the hill and saw no one around. I turned back to her, and asked where her mommy was. She turned a little and pointed to another side of the street. And yes indeed, there was a woman with a baby stroller there. A bit far, I thought. “You just wait for mommy here, alright? You just do not cross the street here alone”.
And I saw her smiling as no one ever smiled to me. Bright, open, warmest smile of the world.
It seemed that she was about to even follow me, so I sped away (after all, who knows, maybe they can accuse you of something for merely trying to speak to such a small child!).
I am trying to remember if anyone ever, from my family, or anyone I loved, anyone at all smiled to me that way. As if her heart had become a star and its shiny particles flooded out of her eyes. It seemed that she had some super extraordinary way to define the shortest distance to my eyes, and so it was the straightest regard in the entire universe. So open, so trusting, and so full of peace and light. No one smiled to me that way. Not even in a dream.
What an endless joy of parents she must be.
We probably all lose that sort of smile while growing up. I saw lots of anger, disdain, and plainly blank affect in my life. I think I might have gotten some horrible secondary personality disorder or neuro-developmental disability just by absorbing the madness I met on my way.
And then bah! A 4 year old smiles at you, and she is not an angel. Just another human.
Is it how it feels when you swim with dolphins? Healing?
Is there a meaning to experiences such as today? That there is hope? That I am alright? That they see me as part of the world and love me, regardless of everything, even if I could have ran over them just 100 seconds ago? What?
Is it all meaningless? A random encounter? Not a sign at all? Just me wanting something I never even got close to?
On second thought… I was close to something extraordinary live, meaningful, and bright maybe twice in my life. Those moments where you know that if getting there depended solely on you, your step is guaranteed. That you are open and acceptant. And then as it often is in the most desired situations and states of being, your choice to not resist is canceled out by someone who holds the incontestable power over that last step decision. And they are scared, they do not find – in themselves – the smile, readiness, and determination that today’s Girl had.
And then you both slip from the edge. All you know is the state of falling. Maybe you do not become shattered. Or even bruised. And for a while, you replace that ultimate desire, that paradise that you saw one step away from you, with other meanings, activities, and states.
And then this random Girl runs out into the street. And your unconscious routine is broken, and you are reminded by that smile – of a prophet, an angel, a human who knows something you do not know – of what you had lost.
Then you cannot sleep and you plead, and you try to negotiate… a month, a week, or a day of being where you could have been. In this life of yours. So real and so inaccessible.
