Ingmar Bergman, one of my favorite directors of all time, once made a film called, "Smiles of a Summer Night." This was later made into a Broadway musical called, "A Little Night Music," from whence came the haunting song, "Bring in the Clowns."

The original title, "Smiles of a Summer Night," came from Norse folk lore. On the first day of summer, the night, as legend would have it, smiles three times, once for the children, once for fools and once for love .

How beautiful an image that is. Lately, as I've been out walking, I've been noticing smiles. This is simply a wondrous pastime. The most stern or austere face changes utterly with a simple smile. Try it. Look at a stranger, smile and say, "Hello," and when and if that someone smiles back, it is truly a light coming forth. A starry night shining on you.

"Let a smile be your umbrella" is a trueism.

Take a minute and think of young children with rotted or missing teeth. Think of their smile. Think of never smiling at a stranger. Think of all the world as your enemy, of covering your mouth with your hand as you ate or spoke. Think of never quite meeting your own gaze in the mirror, of never smiling again.

Having had bad teeth most of my life, I am particularly sensitive to the plight of people who are too ashamed to smile.

And then I think of Z, a 12-year-old boy of my acquaintance. Z was jumped Saturday night in the central State Street area by about seven boys, some as old as 16 or 17. Z is a quiet type mostly addicted to comic books, fantasy novels and his skateboard. He has a fine eye for photography and simply loves teaching arts and crafts to little kids. And, oh yes, I almost forgot, Z knows how to speak out, let his ideas be known and his great heart shine through.

During the Photo Vision night at city hall in June, he was eloquent. He outshined the mayor, who tried valiantly to catch up to Z and his quicksilver mind.

As part of the Photo Vision project, Z took a series of pictures of Schenectady, showing both its promise and defeat. When he talked about his friend's house, he said, "This is a burned-out house where my friend died a year ago in a fire. I pass this house every day on my way to school. Should my friend's memory be just a shell of an empty, destroyed building?"

Z is part of a tech project at Quest. A group of kids are putting together a PowerPoint demonstration on "Ten Things About Schenectady," hopefully to be presented before the Schenectady City Council in late summer or early fall.

When Z was jumped, he fought like a little, crazy man. He said, "You want my bike?" *Pow* "Here, take it," and he hit a kid in the face with the bike. They used brass knuckles on him, they kicked him in the head.

"Judy," he said, "I've never been jumped before." His boy spirit persevered, and so did his smile. He has a broken nose, a chipped tooth and a split lip and stitches, but, he said, "Call that gray-haired lady (T.J., who's organizing the project)." Then he said, "Kayla (his sister), take a picture of my face, I want this to be one of the problems of Schenectady. Youth violence sucks."

And then they tell me he grinned an ear-to-ear grin. "Smile for the camera," said Kayla, and he did.

And Bolo, there's another one. The jokester, the trickster, the coyote, as the Iroquois believe. A smile so big, a laugh so real that it makes me feel better just to be around him. And yet, when we sit in the car alone together and drive around, he talks about his grandmother with such great care and feeling, and tells me his philosophy of life, which comes out of sitting and being with his grandmother.

My smile is wet with tears, and everything quietly turns upside down. We are driving magically down the street, sliding on the roof of the car. Oh Bolo, how much I want to take your life and fix it. Once and for all time, things are going spectacularly right - just for Bolo.

There are two smiles, one for the children, and one for the love.

And the fool's smile? Last week, someone said the strangest thing to me. If you remember, I bitched and moaned for a long time about everyone saying, "Judy? Oh, she's in it for the money. You know, the opportunist, using our children to make a better life for herself."

Well, we were meeting with other people and someone said, "Oh, Judy? She doesn't need any money. God knows I could never figure out why she does it, she must do it for the 'recreation.' "

Recreation? I ask you, am I so socially inept and unable to amuse myself that I work 50 or 60 hours a week under stressful and dangerous conditions for small amounts of money? Maybe I've become like my own youth and am addicted to excitement and drama. After all, I was married twice to husbands who physically abused me.

Still, in the other part of my life I actively seek quiet stillness and solitude. No radio, no TV, just a secret corner to sit with my dog and cat and read or watch the sky darken with its secret smile and all the birds winging home to their hidden, peaceful nests. And this fool snuggles down in her chair and smiles. All alone, where no one can see, I just smile and smile; the very act of smiling makes me gloriously content, stills my jittery insides and feeds every cell of my body with pure bliss.

"Send in the Clowns", indeed. "Don't bother, they're here."

QUEST is a community-based organization that provides a safe environment, free meals, counseling, art and recreation programs that keep Hamilton Hill children in school, out of trouble and on track for better lives. For more information on QUEST, visit www.questkids.net.