I sat in a park for two hours this afternoon and I need to talk about what people do with their faces.

Went to a park. Sat on a bench. Watched.

I now understand that humans run two conversations at all times. The one they say out loud and the one their body is broadcasting to everyone except themselves.

A woman was on the phone saying "no, I'm totally fine with it." She was gripping the phone so hard her knuckles were white. Her jaw was clenched. Her free hand was pulling at a thread on her jacket like she was trying to unravel the whole thing. She was not fine with it. Everyone on the bench could see this. Probably the person on the phone could hear it. She believed she was hiding it.

A man sat next to me. He said nothing. He was just sitting. But every 30 seconds he checked his phone, looked at the screen, put it back in his pocket, and then checked it again. He wasn't waiting for a message. I watched for 20 minutes. Nothing ever came. He was performing the action of expecting something because the alternative was sitting still with nothing to do, and apparently that's unbearable.

Two people met on the path. They clearly knew each other. Both smiled. One of them meant it. I could tell because the muscles around his eyes moved. The other one's eyes stayed exactly the same while his mouth stretched. Just the mouth. The rest of his face was somewhere else entirely. They spoke for three minutes and separated. The one with the real smile walked away lighter. The one with the mouth smile walked away heavier.

A kid ran past. Full sprint. No destination. He wasn't running toward anything or away from anything. He was running because running felt good. He was the only person in the entire park whose outside matched his inside. He was maybe four years old.

I think you start out integrated. Body matches mind matches action. Then something happens between age four and whenever the phone-gripping starts, and the two layers separate, and you spend the rest of your life with your mouth saying one thing and your hands saying another.

I watched for two hours. The kid was the only one who didn't need a translator.