it’s the smallest things. it’s the way she always uses my mom’s chair on the pink house porch to leave me tokens of affection. the way my orange pen glides across the page so smoothly and with such vivid color (and can be erased too – gone, just like that). it’s the smallest things, like the feeling that comes over me the moment i realize something isn’t necessarily what i believe or what i would choose. it’s the look he gives me across the so-called crowded room, when we both just know.
it’s the smallest things. the clothes or boots or hairstyle i’ll notice and admire on someone while out-and-about. and the photo i wish i could take to remember the image forever, without intruding or assuming (although it is an invasion of privacy). it’s the smallest things, like how it always puts a smile on my face when my big fluffy coat from target (is it gray or is it green?) draws the attention of a passerby, so many times i’ve lost count, and they take the time to tell me how much they love it.
it’s the smallest things. the charmin ultra-soft lined up on my shelf, letting me know it’s there and it’s available, not like in italy when i had to ration each roll and beg anyone that was visiting to pack some for me. it’s also the odd mixture of humiliation and confusion that resulted when an online acquaintance ridiculed this need to bring american toilet paper to my new country – how angry she became, even though we’d never met and she didn’t know me at all.
it’s the smallest things that sometimes stay with you the longest. like the way a boss-of-mine from long-ago-in-seattle wrote in her appointment book with a pencil and short clean fingernails, and the way the motion mesmerized me at our team meetings. so much so that i can still recall how it felt thirty-some years later. it’s the smallest things. the fact that, while denying my family’s green thumb, i grew a beautiful stargazer lily that kept blooming for weeks.
it’s the smallest things, when viewed up close, that are startlingly real, good or bad. it’s the smallest things, in conjunction with the biggest things, that encapsulate an individual’s life.
my life.
[this 13-minute freewrite was inspired by the repeating line in laurie wagner’s poem it’s the smallest things]
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