peace
I am practically gnawing on my lower lip with worried thought as I slouch toward my car, but I exchange the customary morning smile, wave, and "have a nice day" with my landlady.
She returns in kind, pausing a second to regard me with her head on one side. "You have such inner peace."
Double take. "Excuse me?"
"I said, you have such inner peace."
I'm a little groggy still, and it takes a few seconds to sink in. The eventual response is typical of my sparkling repartee.
"Wait... no I don't."
"Really? Whenever I see you, you seem to emanate peace."
All this time, I had thought I was a brooding bundle of raw nerve endings.
"Well... thank you." I smile hesitantly, but genuinely. "Have a good day today." I try to inject a little extra warmth into the phrase we've traded every day for the past year.
"You too." She grins and turns back to her work.
Ironically, for the rest of my commute, I am so busy turning this exchange over and over again in my mind, that I actually am at peace. The whole thing had the slow-motion, sunlit feel of getting hit in the back of the head with a bag full of morphine, and I can't kick the feeling that it means something.
Probably it means that I should intensify my diet and exercise routine; I suspect she has me confused with Buddha.