RANDOM REFLECTIONS: 108 Smiles

Which came first? Does feeling good cause your smile or does smiling make you feel good?

Sometimes, when walking in the park, I’ll feel so good to be out there with the cows and birds on foggy spring mornings that I’ll break out in a smile, which I did six times a few days ago. The next day I didn’t smile at all and the day after that I smiled 20 times on my hour-long walk.

(Last night, dancing stoned in the living room, I wondered if my excessive record-keeping about daily life could be counterproductive and scribbled a note to ask my doctor if I might need some help.)

These smiles migrate from mouth to eyes and across my face, arms spreading wide with loud and heavy breathing and sighing. I can then walk on contentedly with a momentarily clear mind into which no thoughts can enter. (I’m probably feeling this good because I recently slept straight through the night 25 out of 30 days, and possibly have finally figured out insomnia after three-and-a-half years of working on it.)

The next day during my morning walk, I started adding more sound and movement to my smiles, swaying halfway around to each side, taking in the views of meadows and trees with airplane arms, and ending with some air drumming and a minor hippie howl. By the time I hit 70 smiles, I’d also included a full twirl before the concluding howl, but stopped the air drumming when my arms got tired. (Around number 80, I was tired of smiling and changed it up with a one-time growling frown.)

I noticed on my marathon smiling binge that the longer the interval between smiles, the fresher the next one felt, especially after I took the sheath of lyrics out of my back pocket and sang one of the rock classics I’d printed off the internet.

When I hit 90, I was sweaty and tired, and cruised to a final total of 108 smiles during the hour-long excursion. The beautiful Southern Humboldt Community Park, our area’s sparkling gem and scene of my morning smile-a-thon, was dreamed up and created 25 years ago by visionaries Steve Dazey and Bob McKee.

Arriving home, I was so beat that I didn’t do the usual after-walk spring weed-whacking and had lost two pounds. Wondering if I might have developed deeper smile lines during my smile trek, I looked in the mirror; the test smile seemed authentic and I felt like “practicing” had been productive.

Wow, 108 smiles. Maybe I am still a hippie.

Paul Modic lives and smiles in Garberville. Email: hillmuffin@gmail.com.