WHAT MAKES ME SMILE

by Martha Slavin

 

Small things in the morning to get me going:  I do the puzzles in the San Francisco Chronicle and the New York Times. The SF puzzles are produced by Puzzmo. The Puzzmo pages make me smile because the creators have added small yellow animated faces to the pages. A little character jumps up and cheers when I complete a word puzzle. When I go to the next puzzle, another little yellow head gobbles up the previous page to reveal a new puzzle. The NY Times puzzles are less fun but require more concentration. No smiling faces there. Connections is the hardest for me of the six NYT puzzles I do each day. The Connections page shows four rows of four words each in a box. I am supposed to find the connections between a group of four words. Sometimes I get them right; other times, the screen pats me on the back and says, Next Time. I breeze through Wordle, give myself two minutes to work on Spelling Bee to at least be Good, and finish the Mini Crossword quickly. I have found a strategy to complete Letterboxed and have fun with Tiles.

I think of those little Puzzmo faces while I watch the Olympics this year. The crowds in the stands are like the little animated emojis cheering me on. When Leon Marchand of France swam the breaststroke, the crowd whooped in unison every time he raised his head above the water. Their cheers made me smile and seemed to help Marchand achieve a new record.

After watching the PBS documentary, The Movement and the Madman, about Richard Nixon, I can't stop humming the John Lennon song, "Give Peace a Chance", a song that was an anthem for the Vietnam War protesters. The documentary shows how masses of people can affect global events. In that case, they helped prevent an escalation of the war. One of the Olympic goals is to promote peace in the world. The Olympics brings people together from all over the world to participate equally in athletic events (who didn't cheer the efforts of the South Sudanese basketball team even though we hold our NBA players in our hearts?) By watching the Olympics, I have turned away from the constant barrage of the daily news and enjoy the feats of these well-trained athletes. (Have you watched any of the women's rugby matches? Amazing!) 

When we attend baseball games, I marvel at the crowd cheers. I listen as we all respond in unison to a great play, a home run, or at the last out in the 9th inning. In that moment we've all come together, and our mutual joy makes us larger than we are as individuals.

Now, are you humming that tune too?

Here's a link to Puzzmo:

https://www.puzzmo.com/today

And to the PBS Documentary The Movement and the Madman:

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/movement-and-madman/