2003-02-23 - 12:22 p.m.

Smiles mean a lot to me. Maybe it sounds weird, but when I go walking (and I do this a lot) my favorite thing in the world is for someone to smile back at me when I smile at them. I always feel like the world around us dissolves for just an instant even though we're perfect strangers and we lift each other up to a place where everyone is full. Their eyes sparkle like a child's with a secret to tell and their lips curve up ever so slightly as if they want to say something beautiful to me. It doesn't matter if it's a man, woman, child, whatever smiling back as long as they smile back. Smiles are like a secret handshake: I'll let you into my world if you'll let me in yours. Smiles seem like such personal things in an impersonal world, like you're giving a bit of yourself to someone who you may not even know. Maybe I'm wrong in saying this, but giving a smile to someone is like giving food to a poor man. This is the best way I can describe it for myself. Both fill a person and it feels so good, for an instant to be so filled that the rest of the world doesn't matter and you can keep going until that next smile, that next meal.

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