Sourire

I spent the Sunday evening before last with a ridiculous smile plastered across my face. The music was good. The movement was the same as it always is, pure joy, perfect in moments, awkward in others. Conversation after conversation after conversation, one woman after the next, then back to the first. I fell in love with a smile, for the night. I do that. I notice her shoes, the rise of her hip, the valley of her waist, the curve of her breast, the line of her shoulder as it rises to a neck, and get caught in that final facet, where the light shines most. Her smile, the upturned corners of her mouth that soften even the hardest lines, and like the lights slowly brought up on a dark stage, stretches almost miraculously into her eyes. It’s hypnotic, that smile, and I feel myself falling into that trance, that 3-minute long love at first dance. Sometimes, the smile laughs, sometimes it simply is in love with the moment, like I am. Whatever it is in me that is drawn to a woman before I come to know her adds up all the pieces, sets her smile as a crown, the final brushstroke of a masterpiece and I fall. Beauty is magnified exponentially in an honest smile.

It is hard to maintain interest in dancing with women who don’t smile or smiles that don’t dance well. Both are castles in the sand built too close to the rushing tide. If I had to choose, though, I’d chose a patient smile who was willing to learn.