You want to see the world smile?
Walk down a busy downtown street on a random Friday afternoon with a litle girl wearing a huge purple tutu, hot pink sunglasses, and fairy wings.
Elizabeth and I did a Mommy/Daughter spa day last Friday and that was her choice of outfit. While she wore shorts underneath her incredibly huge, incredibly purple and ribbon bedecked tutu, she looked, in her words, like a fairy princess.
As we walked down the street, I could see people’s faces register first surprise – after all, it’s not Halloween – and then, without fail, wide smiles of humor and joy.
“Mommy,” she whispered, “why is everyone smiling at me?”
“Because it’s not every day they run across a fairy princess.”
From the homeless man on the street corner who called out, “A real live fairy!” to the business men who paused in their cell phone conversations to stop us and tell her how fantastic she looked to the moms who exclaimed delight and then looked at me with a conspiratorial grin, every person we encountered helped make her day more magical.
When we got home that night, I asked her what her favorite part of the day was. Was it the manicure and pedicure in sparkly purple? Was it our Thai lunch? Was it standing at the second story window of Barnes and Noble, pretending the cars were dragons? Was it sampling chocolate at the fancy chocolate store?
She shook her head and said, “No.”
The best part, it seemed, was walking down the street holding my hand while everyone smiled at her.
I have to agree because when the whole world smiles, it just makes your day that much better.
Makes me wonder why we don’t do it more often. Smile, that is.
