There is something strangely magical about an honest smile from another woman of the same approximate age. Generally making eye contact and offering a smile to another woman is a dangerous proposition – many can rebuke your smile in a single facial contortion that simultaneously communicates utter revulsion at your appearance, disgust that you might presume some camaraderie and offense at whatever outfit you managed to struggle into that morning. A brief moment of eye contact with the wrong woman can degenerate in seconds to a day of self-hatred. Still, when there is rustling nearby at a restaurant or someone approaching on a less-traveled sidewalk, the human – or, at least, Midwestern – impulse is look up and smile. And every now and then …
At the Wildflower Café - a delightful little diner, home to deliciously prepared comfort foods – a thirty-something woman wriggled out from her table, I looked up, she smiled a wide open and unambivalent grin and I returned it. Bizarre.
3420 Indianola Ave.
Columbus, Ohio 43214
(614) 262-2233
posted by Leigh Householder
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