looking at nicolettas photo in last years yearbook

[amalgam3]

nicoletta, your straight-faced picture is the greatest joke ive ever known. i love it. so appropriate too, that that grumpy, scowling old man exterior should greet the parents of your students in their yearbooks, likely their only introduction to you, the only way they will ever see you, and the entirely wrong way to interpret you. and it makes me laugh to look upon those stern, absurdly austere photographs while thinking to myself joyfully, light-heartedly of your smile. a smile that has the capacity to make me float and laugh out of sheer delight in observing it as it breaks across your face, suddenly and completely. a well kept secret between you and your students, nicoletta. i wouldnt have it any other way.

and years from now (of this i am 100% certain) i will look through that yearbook again, see your photo, and immediately picture you in such striking contrast to that captured moment of you with that broad radiating grin on your face, the best smile i have ever known.

and i smile the most genuinely that i have all day.