Why small?

This blog is motivated by a few things that I believe.

I believe that most lives are made up a series of moments that sometimes feel like they push forward in a line, but more often overlap, and repeat, sometimes much to our chagrin. I believe these moments are sometimes unbelievably beautiful, and sometimes they are painful, and sometimes they are significant and huge and change your life forever. I believe more often than not they are what we would call mundane.

I believe we often structure our own narratives around the kinds of dramatic arcs that we’ve seen in movies and read in books — in other words, we view our lives in terms of these milestones. It makes sense. But I believe that the mundane deserves recognition. I believe we need to call a spade a spade and own the fact that while the milestones are important, the blood pumping through our hearts is the everyday.

I believe the mundane, the small is what people share most of all. The universal delight I have seen nearly everyone take in the way tiny newborn fingers will instinctively wrap around their own. The annoyance of waiting to fall asleep at night when you can’t, feeling as though the whole house is screaming with quiet. The way you always feel a bit furtive eating peanut butter out of the jar. The smell of the books you open, the way it feels to be there in your kitchen washing a dish, the way it always makes things feel lighter when a stranger is kind to you on the street, or in a store. The way you will look at your children and realize they have gotten much older without you realizing it, whether they are 3 months, 3 years, or 30. The way you look at a picture of yourself as a child and wonder how it went so fast. The way wet hair feels on the nape of your neck when it’s already humid. You will feel that hundreds or millions of times.

I believe those feelings connect us far better than most Big Stories.

I believe the personal can be political.

I believe storytelling matters.

I believe small things grow.