The Smile Project

“Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.” ~ Neale Donald Walsch 

"You know what you should get?.. Sneakers!.. Something like running shoes. Those would be perfect for you." I said.

That probably was one of the worst pick-up lines.. but it did the trick. I mean, I didn't get a date.. but I got a smile. One of those deeper, more genuine ones. She smiled and then said, "I know. I always wanted to get sports shoes." And I felt that smile in me. It felt like the only reason for me to exist.

I am a 35-year-old Indian guy living in California, happily married to a beautiful wife, and a two-year-old son. I am on a 4000-mile road trip across Mexico which I am doing alone and I feel this smile in a bar in La Paz, Mexico.  It belongs to a 24-year-old gorgeous Mexican girl who happened to be the bartender. Probably the most attractive girl I have ever seen in person. I have almost a week left in my trip and this smile makes me decide what I would do for the rest of it.  Which is feel as many more of those smiles as possible.

Is she single? Why would she be interested in me? Am I looking for sex? I'm married.. what the hell am I doing? Is this a case of mid-life crisis? If she is single, do I lie to her that I'm single as well? A lot of thoughts zip through my head but nothing of those seemed to matter. All I knew was one thing and one thing only.. that her smile made me feel alive and I had decided to live. In full throttle. I didn't have time to waste on my thoughts. I wanted more of those smiles and I got to work.

This write-up is about the extraordinary ride this 'Smile Project' of mine took me on. A ride of passion, inquiry, fear, freedom, and most importantly.. self-discovery.

Act 1 - Not Good Enough

Realizing that my trip just took a big change of course, I get up from my seat at the bar, relax my back and start moving around making myself feel at home. I open conversations with the owner, the waiters, the DJ, and the chef. And within an hour I am standing outside in the sidewalk seating area with the team, 'marketing' the specials to passers-by.  It was interesting coming into a new city only a few hours back and now feeling like working for a local bar.. trying to make eye contact with the tourists who were shying away trying to stay safe.

I learn that they close at 2AM and ask her if she wanted to hang out after that. She refuses. I get back to work. I continue to talk to the team and the customers.. making friends. It was fairly easy, whatever I was talking to anybody could be classified into either of these two things: 1. You are amazing and 2. Why don't you try doing 'this'?  Where the 'this' would be a well-thought-out suggestion which that person would agree is great.. just like the 'sneaker' suggestion. At the end of the day, I managed a total of 3 to 4 not-so-deep smiles. I certainly got her attention but it was not good enough.

The Date

I'm back at the bar the next day and get those curious looks from everyone. And today I shall get deeper.

     "So, why did you drive here from that far by yourself?"

          "To meet you. I know you are thinking I'm kidding but I really mean it."

     "I think you mean it. We are all here for a reason."

          "Yeah. We just have to find out what that reason is."

     "It's funny you say that. I'm supposed to say that."

Assuming that made the 'connection', I ask her again if she wanted to hang out after she got off that night. She refuses again. But gets back telling she could meet during the day the following day. We fix up a lunch meeting and agree to meet in front of the bar at 2PM.

It is 2:03. I am sitting there starting to feel like an idiot. She jumps in front of me apologizing for the 3-minute delay. She had just gotten out taking a dip in the beach across the street and is in her bathing suit. I try hard stopping myself from checking her out.. Is she trying to seduce me? She says she needs a few minutes to change and walks into the bar.. Does she live there? The chef walks into the bar behind her and waves at me.. Is he her boyfriend? I try to ignore my thoughts and focus on the goal. She had to be back at work at four so I had two hours. I think about things I would talk to her. She comes back sooner than I thought and we walk to a restaurant close by to have lunch.

It was like talking to myself, a much younger myself. And yes, I had never felt that before. Maybe because I never really listened while talking with younger people (since I am always sure I know more than them). She sure was trying to see through me and figure out what my intentions were, but she was opening up as well. She talks about her background, how she ended up in La Paz, that this is her first job at the bar, her dreams of owning a bar herself, her challenges etc. I give a quick speech about myself and my boring little life working as an IT professional in the US and maybe since she started with a "Please don't lie to me coz I would believe everything you say.", there were no lies from my side. She was surprised that I was married and appreciated me being honest about it. I show her my favorite photo of my wife and son and she was so drawn into it that she was holding on to it for quite a while.

We talk about her favorite book, Tortuga (Turtle) which is about how we all have a shell over us that we long to be free of and how aptly it signifies her personality. I also learn that she is single and that she earned her degree in Psychology from schooling in Los Angeles (hence the fluent English). We talk about the male psyche and how it relates to women, I throw out few of my favorite concepts on that and she goes, "Wow, finally I get to talk to someone". One of the best two hours of my life.

We walk back to the bar talking about when to meet again and agree to do something together the next day, her day off.

First Night

I had a lot to process from the little meet-up. In short, what I saw was there were treasures of smiles hidden beneath her shell and the shell was pretty hard to break. To me, she personified the Baja landscape - cool and clear blue seas right next to the hot and arid deserts. I also saw that she liked me for some reason and that nailed the coffin for me. It is a great feeling to get crazy about someone and greater feeling to see it reciprocated.  If there was something in me that was not aligned towards her already, at this point it was. I became a robot created solely for the purpose of making her smile and I couldn't wait to get back to work, breaking that shell.

I go back to the bar and tell her that it is great that we decided to hang out the next day but since I wanted to maximize my time with her, I would like for her to come hang out with me after work that night. She agrees immediately and I am dumbstruck. I go back to pick her up at 2AM and we get a lot of suspicious looks from the team, which closes with a "Take good care of her.. or I'll kill you".

Talking about getting killed, it is not exactly a good feeling to be walking through a deserted city street in Mexico at 2AM. Both of us are equally scared as we walk to my hotel room. 

     "Do you have pepper spray?" I ask.

     "I have a knife." She says.

I show her my pepper spray, she smiles and talks about why knife is a better option. We get into the room and as soon as I close the door, there dawns an air of himalayan discomfort. From being scared of getting robbed on the street, now we are scared of each other. I could be a rapist killer and she could be a con artist waiting to rob me after I go to sleep. And above all, we had to clear off the main question: 'What the hell are we doing here?'. She puts her bag on the floor and sits very consciously on the bed. I move my things away from her area, take my seat on the other bed safely away from her's and I start talking. I tell her in a clear and stern tone that I'm not looking for sex. And that my goal is to make her smile as much as I could until I leave and that is pretty much my agenda for the rest of my trip.

     "And why are you doing this?" She asks.

     "It makes me feel alive." I say.

And I tell her to feel at home and do whatever she would normally do at home. That is when she asks me this question which continues to haunt me even now.

     "So, you want to know what I am looking for?"

That I should say did a lot of things to me. On a very basic level, it made me realize that the universe doesn't revolve around me - a realization we all could use once in a while. I parrot her question back to her..

     "So, what are you looking for?"

     "I am tired of being around people that do nothing but try to get into my pants. I see I connect a lot with you and I feel happy when we talk. I want more of that. Haven't felt it in a long while now."

I didn't know if I had intentions of getting into her pants. Maybe I did. But now I didn't. In a moment she transformed from a hot chick to a human being. And I felt that change in me. I have read a lot about sexual objectification and was sure it was impossible for me to be free of it but it was so ridiculously easy. All it took was for her to ask.

Was my transformation for real, I was not sure. But that exchange certainly eased up the air quite a bit. She gets up to go get a shower and I meddle with my phone to play some music, trying to ease it even more. She comes back, tucks herself in, I switch off the lights and ask her how she is doing..   

     "A little scared" She says, "You could still be a serial killer..."

I talk to her about the power of letting it go - my first night in Mexico a few days back where I was camping on the beach.. shit scared of getting robbed, yet captivated by the stars lying down on the beach looking at the night sky. I tell her how hard it was for me to let it go to fall asleep on the beach, how I mustered my courage to do it, and how it was worth every bit.  I hear her breathe heavy and we sleep.

Holiday

We wake up the next morning with buckets of trust lying all around the room and since it was her day off, we had the whole day to capitalize all of that. The plan was to go to Todos Santos, a town nearby known for its turtle breeding grounds and we had to make a stop at her house before we left.

It was a cute little outhouse she was renting, placed behind a bigger house where the landlord stayed. It had two rooms, one of which was pretty much empty. I ask her if I could stay there till I left La Paz, she agrees with a quick "mi casa es su casa" and I promptly close it with a symbolic adding her spare key to my car keys bunch - a considerable landmark for my smile project.

She goes to notify the landlord that I will be living there for a few days and that gave me some time to pry around. Her house, especially her kitchen and bedroom told a lot about her life. It looked like a bachelor guy's house. Reminded me of my days living by myself right after I got my first job. She had her whole life in front of her and at the end was her dream of owning a bar, something I have always dreamt of doing after my retirement. It felt like she was living my dream while I got side-tracked and got caught in the rat race. I so wanted to start over. I so wanted her life.

I see her diary on the table and pounce on it immediately. I flip through the pages read some deep reflections of her's and realize that it probably is the key document that could make my smile project succeed with flying colors.

     "Anything interesting in it?" She asks, walking in.

     "Nope, you are a very boring person" I say.  And she smiles.

We set out on our drive and I held on to the diary. Just had to keep it with me so I could read as much when I found time. It was a fairly long drive and on our way, I tell her that I felt jealous of her life.

     "Interesting!" She says, "I have never known anybody that felt jealous of me. But wait, are you kidding me?" She continues, "I would totally trade my life for yours. Look at you, you have an awesome family, stable job.. you could do anything.. travel to anywhere in the world. You have everything."

I was stumped because it was actually true. I really had nothing to complain about my life. Yet, I felt she had it better.

    "You are right" I said, "I have everything. But before I leave from here, I will do my best to make you realize, you are luckier than me."

    "You take me up as a project, you are in for a surprise." She said. I still didn't get what she meant by that.

We were cruising through the Baja desert listening to music and her diary was lying in the back seat of the car. I was itching to get to it. I ask her if she wanted to drive and her face lit up like a bulb as she agreed. I pull over by the side of the highway and we switch seats. Talking about trading our lives, my car was just a small part of my life I could trade with her and in return, her diary was good enough for me. My plan of course was to read it while she drove but when we started, something else happened.

In me, I felt the joy she experienced as soon as she started driving. As she picked up speed on the highway, she started smiling uncontrollably.

     "It's been years since I got to drive a car." She says smiling.

I put the diary back and changed my sitting position turning towards her so I could keep watching her smile. She couldn't stop smiling. I couldn't stop smiling. And I was amazed that my car, just by being itself, had so much happiness to offer. It was something lot more than living.

That smilefest clearly set the stage for the rest of the day. We did everything from stopping in the middle of the desert, running into it as if chased by mad dogs, to lying down on the beach in silence for a long while. It was a great day for her, I could tell as I was pretty much being her.. closely feeling whatever she was feeling, every minute throughout the day.  Her shell was gone.. for one whole day.

Living Together!

The next four days were like being on an extremely successful fishing trip getting a great catch every time I casted my line. I was fishing for her smiles and the bait (mainly little surprises) came in different forms.. a hosepipe, a doormat, an organized fridge, photography tips, mangoes, sarcasm etc.

Having things like doormat, hosepipe, and pasta sauce in my list of things to buy (when she was out working) was an amazing way to experience the local culture and language. My charades skills were put to serious tests when I had to figure out that I had to go to a 'Ferreteria' to get a 'Manguera'. But at other times when we were out together, it was great to have a first line of Spanish defence right in front of me.

Also spending every evening at the same bar was a great way to mix with the locals. I got to meet people from the whole spectrum of social class.. everyone from a drug dealer that was pissed with me that I won't buy any drugs from him to a school teacher whose primary concern was about how the Mexican culture glorifies motherhood thus driving young girls to get interested mainly in becoming mothers. Also, I got to exercise (at least pretentiously) my longtime dream of owning a bar by interacting with the team on a much closer level and getting quite a few behind-the-scenes peeks at its workings. And of course, on top of all that, the bartender having a personal watch on if I had what I needed to eat and drink was a blessing. It was a perfect week.

I think my smile project was a clear success and the major winners in it were hidden in giving her insights that put the things and the people around her in clearer perspective for her so she saw them as elements of nature with little or no personal significance to her. And given the phase of her life, she wanted those insights more than anything else and some assurance that she was going in the right direction towards her dream. I was able to do a good job at giving her that as I was so sure that she had it all perfect.

The Goodbye Note

Yes, things had to end. I had to start my (three-day) drive back home to be there in time to pick up my wife and son from the airport. They were coming back from their vacation after meeting family in the east coast. I tried to make it as easy as possible. The plan was for me to be ready with everything before she woke up and leave right after she was up. I cleared up my room, loaded the car, left a note in the middle of the empty room with her spare keys on top of it, closed the room, got myself a beer, and sat in the front porch waiting for her to wake up.

She got up, stepped out to say she will take a few minutes to brush, and went back in. Since there was only one chair, I moved to the floor, sat down leaning back against the wall, and when I took my next sip, a bird's nest on a tree caught my eye. I started watching the bird, busy doing its morning chores.

     "I knew you would do that." She said while coming out, pointing to me making the chair available for her.

She moves the chair away and sits next to me leaning against the wall. I show her the bird's nest and we watch it in silence for a while. Then I say that I left a note in the room and it had whatever I had to say to her, I wish her all the best with her life, shake her hands and start walking to the car. I get into the car and start driving. She doesn't say a word.

And this is what I wrote in the note: "Thank you for going with your gut and deciding to hang out with me."

I was crying almost the whole of that day till I reached Mulege (my first stop for the night on my way back). I tried a couple of times to find out why exactly I cried so much, I gave up both times. It was just too complicated to think about. I don't think I would try that again.

The next day was probably the best day of my whole trip. A grin got stuck to my face as and when I was waking up and it stayed there pretty much all day long. I was planning to drive 300 miles that day but ended up driving 800 since I was not feeling any fatigue. I drove all the way from Mulege to LA to a friend's place where I stayed for the night. No backache, no fatigue, no tired eyes nada.. it was like I flew back.

In Summary

Well, everything was just too fast and too intense to make any sense out of.. and I really had to come up with a summary for it all so I could move on. But there were so many different aspects to it, each of which could have a summary of its own. I just wanted one. It was hard but somehow, I got to it finally. Goes something like this: When you feel something.. act on it.