This morning while the small dogs and I were out for a walk, I caught a whiff of cigar smoke on the air. There was a gentleman perhaps my age or a few years older, a cigar clamped in his teeth, who was tidying his front yard. He flung a hose to one side and issued a polite "good morning" as I passed by. I returned his greeting, and thought about how hardly anyone seems to smoke cigars anymore.
And I thought of my paternal grandfather and his kindly face. His starched shirts and tie clips. He was a formal man -- as my parents joked, his idea of "dressing down" was to wear an old tie. He would give me and my siblings his cigar bands, and we would put them on our fingers like rings. He would smile at me, call me his shaina maideleh, and my awkward homely self would feel love glowing warmly around him, shining down and all around.
Those were magical moments.
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I wonder: what if we saw ourselves as those who love us do?
What if I could see the shaina maideleh that he saw, but that I cannot? Would I feel differently about myself?
And what if the shaina maideleh he saw was not on the outside, but on the inside?
Can I carry that shaina maideleh with me like a candle within, and learn to glow as he did?
I can try.
A very blurry photo from Days of Yore.
I am holding my sister's stuffed sheep, and a leaf, I believe.
I have always been fond of leaves, in all shapes and colors.
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