“My only defense against the world is a smile – my only protective shell is a jovial word, my greatest hope is that someday I’ll no longer need a fortress.”
~Unknown
Much has been said about the mixed messages we as people get from the society that cloaks us and envelopes us or shuns us and chastises us: Love yourself; To thine own self be true; no, you’re not the average girl in a video and no, you ain’t built like a supermodel …
BUT
We’re all aware of various images and so-called studies, silently and not-so-silently held truths that all say things to the effect of: Yeah, yeah, you’re okay, but maybe you’d be easier to love if you were thinner, if your nose were smaller or your lips juicier, if your breasts were bigger and/or perkier; if you weren’t you …
It’s a tough world and for me – even at my sassiest – the battle wages and wanes within. Then again:
“God made a very obvious choice when he made me voluptuous; why would I go against what he decided for me? My limbs work, so I’m not going to complain about the way my body is shaped.”
~Drew Barrymore
Every once in awhile it seems that when I least expect it, a golden nugget of truth comes to me from the person I’d least expect to hear it from. Case in point, my cab ride home last night:
Out past my bedtime in a neighborhood not my own, I prepared to bid a good friend good morrow and hop into a cab, expecting the usual quiet, slightly reckless, speedy drive home. I got in and the cabbie turns around and smiles at me – a great big ol’ smile, not unlike the Cheshire Cat, which admittedly made me a tad nervous. Not Bone Collector nervous, but not too far from it.
Speeding through the city, I hear what has to be the ubiquitous mumbling of the cabbie on his headset chatting up some family member in his native tongue. I’m not paying any attention to the fact that he continuously keeps smiling at me in the rear view mirror – we’re headed in the right direction though, which is all I care about.
After about 5 minutes, he hangs up the phone and calls out to me in a clipped, Middle Eastern accent:
“Hello, you?”
I think to myself, “Who else is in here?” as we stare at each other through the rear view mirror.
“Hi,” I say smiling.
“I have to tell you,” he says earnestly, like we’ve been talking for hours. “Please listen to me when I have to tell you this, this one thing …”
Suddenly, I’m a tad anxious. The car is still moving in the right direction so all signs appear to be good, but what is he talking about?
“Please, do not ever – you listening? Please do not ever change the way God made you. You are beautiful woman.”
My initial reaction was to laugh because this man cannot be serious. So I laughed. His furrowed brow suggested this wasn’t the best thing I could’ve done.
“No. You laugh, but I tell you. You are blessed! Really! I kid you no! Smile for me, please?”
I smile on command. This is the smile that has scared wide eyes that are trying desperately not to blink – you know, where one looks slightly alarmed in the crazy sense.
“Have you looked at your smile? Do you like it? It is beauty. I just telling my wife, ‘This young girl has a lovely smile. One like your friend I say to her, my wife.’”
“Thank you. Thank you very much. I like that. Thank you.” He is not Japanese but my head is ducking and nodding all the same.
“No! Listen to me. You know the space, the space between your teeth? That is good sign. It is beautiful. Listen to me. I not kid you! It is beautiful, don’t ever go and try to fix it. No need! No need to change the way God made you.”
“Thank you so much,” I say, warming up to the man whose own smile is quite nice. “I used to want braces desperately, but I’ve grown to love my gap, it makes me different. I don’t think teeth should be perfect.”
“Right! That’s right! Not made to be perfect. Made to stay the way God made you!”
Slowly he pulls up to the curb and I prepare to step out of the cab, but not before he can tell me about what a mistake Michael Jackson made by trying to change himself; not before he compares my color to that of Vanessa Williams's skin color and how lovely it is; not before he, unbeknownst to him, massages that part of my heart and soul that had once again grown weary from all of society’s saturations and mixed messages.
Getting out of the cab I reach to pay my fare and he takes only part of it and says, “You stay beautiful and keep smiling – that’s all the tip I need. That and make sure you get inside quickly so I know you are safe. Good night.”
Walking up the steps last night I truly felt as blessed as he said I was. At first it was just the euphoria of holding on to a few more dollars, but as I washed off the day’s supply of makeup and stared bleary-eyed into the mirror I realized just how blessed I was, and am:
“And finally I twist my heart round again, so that the bad is on the outside and the good is on the inside, and keep on trying to find a way of becoming what I would so like to be, and could be, if there weren't any other people living in the world.”
~Anne Frank
I didn’t even look to get his name or his cab number, but he’s been my best cabbie so far. I guess life continues to amaze me and I am glad of it. This city continues to amaze me, too, showing me daily that things really aren’t always what they seem, and that Anne Frank was right:
“Despite everything, I believe that people are really good at heart.”