NEWS /
Belly of a Smile
By Roxanne Amico
I was smiling even before I first saw him. This is not unusual: I deliberately
smile as I pass out flyers during our Women in Black vigils. My job as I see
it is to beam... To be a warm light source which draws the public to want
to receive what I offer.
His window rolled open when I stepped toward the car he drove. It is effective
theatre. Many passers by don’t know what "the woman in the road"
is handing out, but I look so happy and welcoming that they-want-to-know.
The vapor crystals of his breath in the cold air dissolved – but his
words sliced: "Well, look at you! You look just like a deer caught in
my headlights!" This much I have learned over the course of more than
a year: Those who call attention to me personally are not likely to be interested
in our educational efforts. I brace myself for what might follow...
I consciously loosened my facial muscles and found a larger warmer smile to
shine on him. "Hi! Would you like a flyer?!" ...There are a total
of 19 muscles in the human face. Only 3-4 of them are used in smiling, though
it can be argued that more are used , depending on the kind of smile... We
can use our mouth, our eyes, our nose, our forehead...In this instant I am
smiling with my eyes, the Orbicularis Oculi muscle. These muscles hug the
eyes, and by extension possibly, the gaze of the beholder who is the recipient
of the smile...
A deer caught in the headlights freezes and with this image in mind I keep
moving, to be less at risk of being hit. About being ‘hit’, I
think: In the course of a year – in the face of devastating crackdowns
on civil liberties and the face of destructive rollbacks of environmental
policies "for the war effort," and the face of disintegrating domestic
policies regarding healthcare for women and children, and the face of a downward
spiral of quality of education, and the face of a mass media oblivious to
the above and more, I find every single one of my own facial muscles in my
practice of "Zen and the art of joyful presence in the political moment"...
I realized there were 3 male passengers in the car when I heard their laughter
bounce out the window with the driver's sneer, "Don’t want a flyer..."
His face hardens. His menacing tone ricochets with the laughter around the
car, confirming that this is a vehicle I want to leave behind fast. Few experiences
in my life so clearly demonstrate the way WIB does that there is "nothing
personal here." Cars keep rolling by – If this car doesn’t
want the info, another one will. Still, I sense this man’s intention
to personalize our encounter and step up the pace...
"Okay -- Have a nice day!"
I turned away from their big silver SUV and stepped towards the next car;
the light changed. Most cars in the oncoming traffic had their windows open
and hands out. He said, "I WILL have a nice day — You enjoy your
life while you can..." Although I
keep moving, I feel a chill in my heart from this veiled threat. What I might
say – but won’t – comes to mind. How I could react –
but don’t – flashes in the passing chill. An image emerges of
me at 10 years old...: I am stomping my foot and punching the air
with my fists, and screaming, "HEY, Buster! I AM enjoying my life!"
I blink the image back and engage the next driver with a direct-eye-contact
smile, enjoying my life-in-the-moment, handing a flyer to the open hand.
Two Weeks Later
I am hiking a trail densely laced with hemlock and – I’m told
– full of deer, though the first hour bears nothing but tracks leading
into brush. I bushwhack off the marked trail, following some hoof-prints.
I lose the tracks in the fielded border... beyond that is a
wide creek.
I stand at the creek and breathe, scanning the length of this geological creature
whose existence I somehow missed for the first half of my hike. Then I see
them about two-hundred feet away: a doe and her fawn grazing peacefully.
I remain where I am. A series of thoughts ripple my mind in alternation with
this scene I’ve entered, as they glide almost invisibly across the creek...
I am perfectly still (-- I think). They don’t know I am here yet (--
I tell myself). And in a blink or a breath the mother snaps her to attention
– looking directly at me. I can almost hear her nostrils flare. ( I
tell myself, "If I don’t move, she won’t know I’m here"
–
forgetting conveniently that her sense of smell can probably betray what I
ate for breakfast.)
We hold each others gaze, each of us breathing the same air. She contracts
her neck, bucks her head, thumps the ground. The younger one looks up at her
from the bank-grazing. At this moment I remember the camera around my neck
and am
instantly ashamed, in the gaze of John Berger, as I realize she would read
my attempt to capture her image in the lense as trying to possess her life
with a gun. I become aware that even though it is not my red coat she sees
- since color is not what her eyes can see - she sees me better than I see
myself... and it-is-nothing-personal...
The baby lowers its head disinterestedly. Mother repeats the contracting/bucking/thumping
motion and this confirms for me that she is communicating danger to her companion.
I want to say, "I will not hurt you. I am harmless." The doe turns
and leaps away; the other follows. This leap is a thread pulling my breath
away in a gasp.
Slowly, unselfconsciously, I smile. I realize this doe just decided that she
and her offspring would not be "caught in [ my ] headlights." I
think of the man in the car – his hard face, and I smile. It’s
a different smile now. In this smile, the "Frontalis Epicranius"
muscle is used. It is also known as the "frontal belly," because
it is the muscle of the forehead... The forehead smiling: Pregnant with the
eggs of all smiles, waiting for fertilization from the seed-events of a life.
-Roxanne R. Amico is a visual artist who stands with Women in Black.
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Last updated April 24, 2003