Tiny Acts of Resistance #1

Hear me out.

As someone with chronic Resting Bitchface, who HATES to be told by ANYONE what to do with my face, I know what you're thinking, but one thing I’ve started doing is offering everyone a smile…especially in W. WA, we have this…I dunno if it’s hipster or Scandinavian immigrant based, or maybe just being an invisible, middle-aged person, but people barely look at each other when walking down the street here.

​So I’ve started offering everyone a smile.

Most of the time they’re buried in their phones & don’t even notice. If they do notice, often they look at me blankly, or with suspicion. But SOMETIMES, and more often than I’d have thought, I’ll get eye contact & a smile back, and no matter who it comes from, it always floods me with warmth. And even old, crusty, cynical ME feels a few good endorphins kick in. 

I helped a friend move to Western MA in early fall of 2024, across the Unitied Staes, END-TO-END on I-90, and through a shit-ton of staunchly red areas. I'm not gonna say I wasn't excited once we finally hit Minnesota. However, one thing that was pretty F*cking consistent through Eastern WA, Montana, Wyoming and South Dakota was being treated really well by service people. Most folks had a warm smile and an extra word or two as I bought gas station coffee, or checked into motels, or got takeout. I noticed this, in particular, because great service, in the Seattle area, isn't always a sure thing. Again, dunno if it's the too-cool-for-school vibe, augmented by the long-standing glut of Scandinavian immigrants, but service people are often chilly, doing the bare minimum required in terms of hospitality. Not so in these more conservative parts of the country. Granted, I don't know the SPECIFIC proclivities of those who rang up my coffee order across the country, (nor those of my service workers here), and of course they had no idea I'm Jewish, Latine and extremely left-leaning, but I was a little floored at how PLEASANT people were. And it always started with a smile. 

It’s a very tiny thing, in terms of resistance, but I feel like tiny things are the foundations to starting to be more united than divided. Maybe that's the simple place we can meet each other for a few seconds. A smile. A little eye contact. We're all just PEOPLE, after all. How are we ever going to understand and empathize with each other, if it doesn't start with the warm feeling that provides? 

---