Smiling Meditation

It started with a smiling meditation. Breathe in, breathe out and make a slight smile, breathe in, breathe out and make a broader smile. A few minutes of this and Veronica was a changed woman. It was like magic. She was coming back to life; she could see possibilities. She felt strong, calm, and loving and she decided to try again. She felt it might work this time. She was so lonely, so alone, and she missed Brian. She missed him so much and she wanted him back.

She patted her slightly bulging stomach and loving cooed, “He’ll come back baby. He’ll come back. You’ll see, we won’t be alone I won’t let you be alone.”

Veronica sat down at the computer and started to type. She typed and deleted, typed and backspaced, typed and laughed and cried and typed, her eyes focused, almost boring into the screen, her teeth alternately biting her lip and slamming together to chatter quickly making a hollow chattering sound as if she were cold. Her tongue moved its way from lower to upper until her lips, wet, folded in on each other rubbing up and down. Occasionally all facial movement stopped as her ideas intensified and her fingers flew across the keyboard.

She read the letter out loud with great emotion. At the end tears were flowing down her pale cheeks, and she decided, as she allowed the tears to remain on her face and dry into her skin that the letter was perfect. She was so excited about that thought of Brian reading the letter that she seriously considered e-mailing it, but she thought better of it assuming that Brian might just delete it; but a snail mail letter – maybe put inside of a nice card would be perfect. He’d open it at least before he threw it away. “He won’t just be able to see my name and delete it.” She said to herself smugly. “And rewriting this into a card with beautiful handwriting. He’ll love this. I know he’ll love this. He’ll need to see me after he reads this.” She said to herself. She prayed that he would read it, maybe he would understand that she meant what she said. Maybe he’d be willing to come back home.

She finished neatly writing the letter into a card with dancing cats on the front; she was laughing and feeling better than she had in weeks. She pulled out an old file of stickers and plastered hearts and stars on the outside of the envelope; she filled the envelope with multi-colored confetti. Some said Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, and some said love, peace, and hello. She thought he’d find this cute, and funny, and she thought it would make him remember the good times and decide to come back. She loved him so much. She was miserable without him. Veronica had been devastated when Brian left, but even more so when the police delivered the notice. The thought almost made her change her mind, “But he could” she thought “choose to come back if he wanted to.”

She decided that she would walk to the post office and make up her mind when she got there. She loved being outside in the beautiful California sunshine. She walked, or rather skipped to the post office. She waved at people in cars and smiled at kids on bicycles. She even called out little niceties like, “You really should wear a helmet! You don’t want to ruin that beautiful face!” and “Cute dog!”

Arriving at the post office her resolve was slightly shaken. She walked over to a mailbox meant for people in cars to drive by and deposit their mail. She stared down at the mailbox and into the darkness inside. She decided that her good feelings were a good omen, held the card to her chest, wanting some of the love in her heart to seep into the envelope; with her eyes closed, she did another minute of a smiling meditation, and only opened her eyes as the impatient and unkind man in the car waiting to mail his letter beeped at her three times. Ignoring him, she kissed her letter, and gently let it slide down the dark hole that held so many people’s wishes and hopes. This time, for sure, she felt. This time he would come back.