and I returned this smile, it seemed to me as if I would finally start life. Yet it is so obtrusive in its presence. Everywhere around us, sprouting, flowering, flowing, turning, and giving the smile. And I saw it. Otherwise I was not there to see it. What was still to be done was what had to be worked up, worked out, worked forward. While walking, driving was already thinking about the goal, but not there. But when I managed to be there, I saw the smile. When I opened up to the present presence, I also became present. And I enjoyed the scent and the colors, and I replied the smile.
A new morning, this is nothing unusual. It comes, inevitably, seemingly. Just as I am not surprised that the stone falls to the ground when it falls, that the ground is under my feet when I stand on it, for it is so. Steady presence, which I take as given, of course. Until I saw the smile, as the presence of the new day in which the promise was to have a chance to live this new day, not only to live it but to live it with vitality, amazed, hopeful and smiling. And that was my smile as a reply. Smiling of the simple fact, smiling of the possibilities that breaks the banality and allows me to penetrate the miracle of life, my life, every single day that opens with the morning.
On the day when …
…. you smiled at me,
and I answered your smile, it was as if I were going to see you for the first time. It had happened before, you were present. You were around me, infinite in your being-yourself and self-being, in your yourself to me, and giving me a smile. And then I saw it. Otherwise I was not there to see it. I was afraid that the touch might be painful, that it might be able to touch me, move and surround myself. If I close, nothing can happen to me. Then you cannot get to me and do nothing to me. It cannot be pain. It can also be no cure. Pain can be your access. But also healing. What will it be? I see your presence, and the promise. It can be all, I see in this promise. It can be anything, fulfillment and change and expansion and vitality, all that if I allow myself to be inspired by the promise that is in your presence, or I can be locked up where nothing can happen to me but nothing can be given.
And so I let myself in, decided, opened me up, so that I was also present to you, in a presence that carries the promise within.
And it started to return your smile.
