He had this smile that never seemed to fade. Like he knew something that no one else knew. A private joke & only he knew the punchline. Even when his mouth was straight & structured, not curled into that grin, his eyes shone & laughed out loud. It made me giggle in my tummy just to see him.
A calmness enveloped him. It radiated off his person & smelled fragrant, dewy lilacs in the spring. I never had to speak. Just sitting with him, feeling that feeling & smelling that smell made me feel joyful.
I think some people are just born that way. You see, some people learn wisdom. They study, pilgrimage & make calm a goal. Others never give it a second thought. Life is pain & work & rush hour. Fight, accumulate, die! But some very special people are just born a step ahead of the rest of us. As children, there’s a honey sweet restfulness about them. As toddlers they hold your gaze & their eyes dance. Because they know something you don’t know…& it’s funny. Beautiful funny.
They can’t & don’t try to explain it. There are no words. It’s breath or gravity, it just is.
My grandmother insisted that people like this had old souls. They’d been around the block a time or two. And if it seemed like they knew more about life, love & the human condition then you did, it was because they did. The older a soul, the closer it is to God & to Truth.
I often wondered what Truth he had locked away in those eyes? If I asked would he tell me? Could I have calm & smell like Spring?