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What A Beautiful Smile

I love to look at pictures. It may seem odd seeing as I do not like to pose for pictures. Amateur or professional, I have been the subject of some truly awful shots. I dream of the day a true artist will capture a shot that will make me look like I want. Now for the right price I am certain there is such a magician, I mean photographer, out there.  For now I am waiting, patiently?

Many years ago what was left of my self-esteem was permanently scarred by a “friend” in middle school ( back then it was called Jr. High School). We will call her “Darlene”. She was a rotund vertically challenged individual we walked to school together with another friend every day. “Darlene” a name that might lead one to make a connection with darling, was far from that. I learned from her fashion improprieties and mistakes that I could ill-afford to make (i.e. wearing your gym shirt under/instead of  your regular blouse to prevent the time guzzling of dressing for class). She also made me painfully aware that I did NOT have a smile that would light up a room. I remember going home looking in the mirror in the bathroom and thinking,” Uuuuuh, I do have an ugly smile”. I would not smile in pictures for years after that.

Every time I saw an ad for toothpaste,where the actors flashed toothy grins I’d ignore them completely, and remember what my “friend” had brought to my attention. I did not have particularly crooked teeth, nor were they rotted out or even discolored. To be honest there was NOTHING remarkable about my teeth or my smile. Then I saw them( actually I just began to take notice of them), they would stop me dead in my tracks for life. They were dimples. I immediately decided to and did in fact dub them the single most important factor in a good smile (not ignoring teeth). After all how could you not display your pearly whites, when you had dimples to accent them. I began paying attention to them I found my father, my younger brother and sister all had them. They were all around, yet they still were cause for notice.

Off we go on a tangent; defined as (believe it or not) a facial deformity of the zygomaticus major, these little indentures have managed to grace the faces of some of the most beautiful people you know or know of. They are hereditary and some of them disappear with time, as the muscles which are”too short” stretch out with age. Thus one may have them as a child but lose them later in life. We associate the dimple with children or babies, perhaps this is why we think they are so cute and are continuously admired if one manages to hold onto them in adult life.

Think about it from your senior classes prettiest smile recipient to the cover of “People Magazine”. They are the quote marks to a smile.  From Tupac to Brad Pitt, Linda Ronstadt to Gabrielle Union, and the many in-betweens; the thought of their smile makes you smile. While I do not remember my senior classes recipient I do remember one from previous year, he was a green-eyed fellow named Warren. So the good Lord graced Warren with unusually pretty eyes, beautiful teeth, and dimples. The stuff crushes are made of, right? I did not know Warren personally and while amazingly I did not have those kinds of feelings for him; I do remember his name, and it is because of his beautiful smile. I invite you to examine the people you know or simply have seen who possess these little marks on their faces, and see if they do not coerce a smile from you.