Small Things

Given the choice between the venti or the short, a hoop earring or post, tiny Peppermint Patty or regular size, amphitheatre or small concert venue, for me it’s the miniature by a mile every time.

I love the teeny. The weeny. The petite. The pocket sized.

Who can resist a cupcake? A three-ounce flight glass of beer. The tiny rocking chair.

Is it the cuteness factor? The ease in picking it up, popping it into the mouth, lifting it? Or is it that little things feel like a fit for my five-foot frame, my child-size head, hands and feet?

Of small things, the writer Lia Purpura wrote, “In miniature, everything is significant… they are “portable and light, dense and compressed as diamonds.”

Counterintuitive as it might sound from a writer, I think most of us write too big. We can be long-winded, using more words than we need. When something beautiful is succinctly said, it can also be more impactful, easily remembered and more swiftly processed than word play for word count sake. It’s why we appreciate a solid summary, a well-turned phrase, a good quote or pithy bumper sticker. When the words are carefully selected, it resonates more deeply.

Vincent Van Gogh wrote that great things are done by a series of small things, brought together.

The words we choose are like the beads we string together for a necklace, or the stitches of yarn in a bootie, creating something magnificent from nothing.

Photo by Janko Ferlic/Unsplash

Coming Up this Fall

 “Dispatches to the Divine: Soliloquys to Spirit” A single session online workshop. Ritualwell. 11 am CT. September 18.

“The Dig: Memoir as Personal Archeology,” CG Jung Center, single session (online). November 2, 2024. 10 am to noon.

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