Deadpan

I’m not a smiler. I live so much inside my own head that I often forget I have a face, much less that I’m supposed to turn up the corners of my mouth. There are a few people that will coax a real smile out of me, and these are the ones I hang onto for life. To everyone else, I am, as one administrator said, “Too calm.”

People in these parts have a real problem with my face and, by extension, me. Here the convention is to smile and laugh when you’re around other people, whether you like and understand them or not. Shyness and introspection aren’t socially acceptable. That’s why you rarely see someone here listening to music with headphones. The only experiences that matter are shared experiences.

For someone who likes quiet solitude, Spanish culture can be a type of hell. Every time I retire up to our room for some reading or writing, Ruyman’s family is convinced I hate them and that I’m unhappy here. Mostly I’m neutral about the whole thing, but that isn’t how my face or actions are being read. My husband, knowing my tendency toward deadpan expressions, encouraged me to smile more. Since my fake grin looks evil, I cooked up a faintly pleased expression I thought would do the trick. The last time I used it in public, though, someone said, “Wow, she’s a serious one, isn’t she?”

Yes. Yes, I am. Now leave me alone.