Ali Walks Around

Do you ever smile so hard it hurts?

So hard that your cheeks ache and you forget what you were even smiling about?

Maybe our idea of smiling isn’t what we do when a camera is pointed at us.

Maybe we aren’t supposed to be smiling so hard. 

Maybe we shouldn’t be working so hard, playing so hard, crying so hard, fighting so hard, so hard that we grit our teeth to be able to bear it until its over.

Maybe we should just work, and play, and cry, and fight, and smile until the sensations release and we have room saved within us for whatever comes next.

Maybe, instead of being like an ocean with high waves and low waves, we could be still.

So still that we can see all the beautiful life and fishes swimming underneath the surface.

So still that we remember why we are smiling.

As Cheryl Strayed once mentioned in her book, Wild, instead of reaching down for the beautiful fish we see swimming below the water, hoping to grab it and hold on to its beauty forever, what if we just let the fish be?

What if we just watched it swim?

Because reaching down only makes the beautiful fish scurry away.

“Oh, how wild it is, to let be.”