412. Rockstar

I was walking up the Main Street to the market square and several men and women, young and old, greeted me with beaming smiles. People I didn't recognise. I'm used to that being a teacher, all the kids that I do not recognise once they're out of the classroom, or have been gone from school for a while and have changed. Or the parents I have seen at parents' evenings.

I smile back. One thing I have learned from my summer in the tiny islands of the Pacific Ocean is tp smile all the time. Then everything is easier. Stuck in traffic? Smile, to yourself, in your car, and the traffic will seem like no bother at all. Stuck in line in a shop? Smile and listen to people's conversation and you'll end up wanting to stay there all day. Stuck in the rain? Laugh and jump in the huge puddle or run under the big tree where the rain slides down on the gigantic smooth leaves and you'll be like under a shower.

That day in the rain this old woman was standing beside her bicycle waiting for the boat. She had a huge bright blue bin bag on her. A huge rectangle of bright plastic in which she had cut one opening for the head, two for the arms and here she was standing in her improvised raincoat.

She smiled at me.

'Bonjour!' I said, smiling my widest smile. I was getting quite practiced at this smiling business. It felt good. I didn't not even feel self-conscious nor stupid in my shorts and baseball hat and sunglasses in the pouring rain. She just stood there and smiled bone-dry in her bin bag. I almost asked her if she had a spare one.

'Waiting for the boat? Going to catch a plane?'

'Yes.'

'Funny. Hey? You people just dream about coming here and us people here we dream of going over there where you live.'

'This is so true.'

That old lady was the best philosopher ever. Best clothes designer as well.

She laughed and told me that she had traveled to Paris once, years ago, that she had won a prize and the price was a trip to Paris.

So now I try to smile all the time. 

So I smile at all these people. I feel like a rockstar. People know me and I don't know them. When I said this to Baby she said:

'Yes! That's exactly it! It felt like my mum was a rock star the other night at 3 AM waiting for the bus that never came and then this boy about my age came up to me and said 'are you Mrs F's daughter? and started chatting to me!'

'Make sure you don't travel without a few signed photos of me!'

I said very seriously.

And then I smiled my broadest smile. 

PS: just ask for signed pictures in the comments. :-)