“Count your age
by friends, not years.
Count you life
by smiles, not tears.” 
John Lennon

I’m not exactly sure why, but I was feeling a little melancholy today. Kathy was home all day nursing a headache and cough. I’ve been contemplating a few opportunities which have arisen in my life that, for some reason, have created a bit of anxiety for me. Since no rain was predicted for today, I thought it would be a perfect time for me to take a longer-than-usual walk. 

My normal walking route is actually quite boring. I walk from home to our local post office and back. It’s 2.6 miles round trip. Sometimes I have a letter to mail, but most often I just walk past the post office and loop back home when I reach Saratoga Avenue. Today I walked to Santana Row, which is located 2.2 miles from my home.

I popped in my ear pods and logged-in to my Pandora account. As I walked, I listened to “Laid Back Beach Music Radio.” The station offers an array of upbeat tunes from reggae to country. The songs are perfect for an afternoon walk, and many of them bring back pleasant memories of my time in the islands.

Several times during today’s walk, something caught my attention. There’s this thing I do. When I walk past someone who is walking in the opposite direction, I make a point to look them in the eye. If they look at me, I smile. That’s it. It’s really quite simple. I’ve been doing this for many years. By far, the majority of those I passed today smiled back. That’s not always the case.

When I arrived at Santana Row, I wandered down to Cocola, a small café which has an impressive selection of delicious, though overpriced, cookies and pastries. I got one small mango-filled cream cookie. Ka-ching: $2.65… and 250 calories. It was delicious! I also got a cup of their incredible hot chocolate, which puts Starbucks’ hot chocolate to shame. The price of the chocolate was actually quite reasonable, but the calorie count made up for it. I enjoyed the snack immensely.

When I walked into Cocola, a customer, who was sitting at a table in the corner working on her computer, smiled at me. This caught me a bit off-guard, as I had not initiated the smile. Of course, I smiled back. When I got up to leave the café about a half-hour later, a different customer, who had been sitting at the table behind me, also shot me an unsolicited smile. Again, I gratefully returned the smile. This same scenario played out a few more times before I departed Santana Row for the walk home. I must admit, these smiles surprised me. I didn’t get a sense that any of them were flirtatious in any way. They were simply genuine acts of kindness… and humanity.

A simple smile, though it costs nothing to give, has the potential to change a person’s day in a positive way. As I made my way back home, I couldn’t help but be appreciative of the smiles I’d received from individuals this afternoon, regardless of who initiated them. The melancholy feeling I had at the start of my afternoon walk had diminished completely, replaced with a tremendous sense of gratitude.