I'm told I look happier

I don’t know if it’s true.

But I’m told I’m smiling more.

Showing teeth.

Is it that I’ve changed jobs from one where I felt untrusted and unseen to one where the place at the wheel is clear and the people I work with lean in with me to pull in the same direction together?

Or is it that my sister’s issues are so crazy big that I have the gift of perspective on everything else?

Then again, it could be the little translucent Buddha I lost at the Hotel Intercontinental, that concrete place of squeaking doors and the neighbor who i overheard weeping the hallway at 3 am?

Who knows?

But I will say it’s hard to be unhappy when you kayak with dolphins on a Sunday morning and learn that at 57 you still have time to discover the ecstasy of attempting to stand on a 9 foot foam board that is riding the ocean surf that rolls with the gravity of the universe at large.

So, yeah, maybe I don’ t just look happier. Maybe I am.