All the small things...

It’s the little things, sometimes.

Like last night I spent about an hour hanging all my earrings (well, okay, most) on a plastic organizer I bought for $15 at the Container Store. I’d been thinking over and over about how I didn’t like the way I had them stored and how hard it was to find the ones I wanted, how I needed to get on pinterest and etsy and craft blogs and see what people with not a whole lot of space did about such things. Then I was at the container store getting boxes so I can finally ship out the last of my holiday gifts, and there it was. $15. Infinitely happier.

Or there’s this apron Lillie made me that has a Ravenclaw patch on it and tulle around the bottom. It’s so pretty and geeky and wonderful and unexpected.

I don’t think anyone has handmade sewn me something to wear since I was in elementary school, but those are the clothes I remember best, a red and green velvet dress with bells for Christmas or a polka dot dress with three sets of ruffles for the skirt like I wanted. Life is like that, though. Things seem overwhelming or crappy and then out of nowhere someone does something small, like sew you an apron or have you help them make sugar cookies, and you think not of the act itself but that this particular act was one of those hardwired into you as a small child as the sort of thing people who love one another do for each other, and you feel loved.

Or there’s the tiny snowflakes falling outside my window right now.

Though they are too few to mean a day off from work tomorrow, they still make everything seem fresher and prettier, the air smells crisper and feels nicer blowing in through the open sliver in the glass. It would be nice to see the campus covered in snow one more time before we leave, especially since we could be moving somewhere with lots of snow (where it won’t seem so magical) or somewhere that never snows (where I’ll really miss it).

There are more things, too: handwriting a letter, finishing a good book, a cat huddled against the back crook of your knees to ward away the cold, a favorite movie unexpectedly on tv, a fresh hot cup of coffee, breakfast for dinner with a friend, having people actually show up when you call an emergency urban family meeting to discuss crisis resolution (with margaritas). These little things that make up a life and are inconsequential probably mean more than the big stuff I dread every day.

I’m a worry wart by nature, a byproduct of ingrained personality and a childhood shadowed with layering abuse meted out for a failure to anticipate. Life is too much like chess to me: don’t move until you see it, whatever it is, coming several moves ahead. Spontaneous movement means losing pieces you need or care about. Acting without forethought, and heaps of it, hurts people, and I did enough of that when I was young and angry and should have known better but didn’t. I hear it all the time, like vespers sang in some inner monastery: Lead with you head, not your heart.

I used to be all emotion, no reason, my feelings tying my tongue. Now sometimes I’m too much head and not enough heart. Luckily for me, that shimmering pool of feeling is always just there beneath the thin ice surface because I feel everything all the time, and so most of the time I think I’m both. Law school gave me the ability to make the argument my heart knows but cannot speak.

 Even if I don’t want to spend my life lawyering, that was probably worth the hundred grand. It was a tool I needed to be a more effective advocate for myself, to be able to say in a hot moment what I feel in a way other people can hear it. Again, a small thing, one not listed in the admissions brochure, but certainly a gift none the less, and one that makes me happier in the long run.

And it’s those small things that move my heart to music, that makes something inside me put a notch above my bed that says one day is good or bad beside the others. A small thing, like Papaya's sleeping face. Like a much needed hug. Like someone pulling a blanket over you in your sleep. These things show us the world is good, people are kind, and we are loved beyond our own awareness, sometimes without measure.

For all these things and more, I’m feeling grateful.

So let’s get back to one of those awesome small things now that I can smell again, shall we? Let’s talk about some books and music and perfume.