Submitted by Rochelle.

It has been my custom when I am out and about to smile at someone I perceive to be a kindred spirit. And often as not we exchange smiles and move on.  It doesn’t happen with everyone, but enough to make me take smiles home with me. Now, as I walk up and down the aisles at Trader Joes (my favorite grocery store, where the exotic comes packaged with the ordinary) with twenty other masked shoppers, I am aware that where a smile could exist there is simply some masks; even some designer made masks.
But I make an attempt to smile with my eyes and then I become aware that some people are smiling back and their smiles are so very genuine that their eyes and body language allow their smiles to come front and center of their masks.
In that reciprocation, I can tell that we are at peace with what is.
Knowing this, it behooves me to smile behind my mask wherever I happen to be.
Surprisingly, there is a lot of genuine bonding going on because of our mutually masked situation.
And then there is waiting in line.
Americans have had a fast-food mentality for a very long time. We go into a store, get what we want, even shop around for the joy of seeing what there is to see and then pay the price and leave.
Now I wait in line to get into Trader Joes, stand in a short line behind someone so that I can maintain social distancing as they are looking at the same items I wish to be buying.  Then wait in line to pay for my purchases.

Once I stopped resisting waiting there was so much to see and time to think thoughts that were bereft of deadlines, to meditate. Even take time to find a reciprocal smiler.