What If the Tiny Things Are Everything?
Fragmented thoughts after the "January to Remember"
I began a post in early January about my word of the year: Tiny Things. I had a small piece of wood on my desk—a remnant of a Christmas ornament idea that never came to be. I would paint “Tiny Things” on it and even put a photo of it in the post. As I write this, I’m thinking, maybe I could paint it real quick and put it here. But that is not going to happen.
The day after I started to write that post, the fires broke out in Los Angeles. We evacuated for five days and were so fortunate our neighbor remained unscathed. Well, that might be going too far. The invisible things you cannot see are sometimes the hardest ones: the air we breathe, the warnings that our town could be next. It is as though a thief came in the night that no one ever expected could have climbed the wall. But they did and it changed everything.
Once we settled back home, my daughter back in school, a sickness entered our home. It was much worse than COVID. It entered like any normal cold but worsened by the day. Me on the couch, thinking “If a fire broke out now, how would I get to the car?” My husband - who rarely gets sick - got hit the worse. We heard him hit the kitchen floor early one morning after a long night of being ill. Thankfully, I was feeling better and took him in to be evaluated. I am grateful to report, we all made it through - no permanent damage done.
February. I welcome you. Let’s begin again. One day can change everything. The only thing we have control over are all those tiny things: the new camellias blooming each day, birdsong being the soundtrack of my morning walks, my daughter’s voice reading me a book, the sound of the rain outside my window, the smell of morning coffee, my husband’s laugh, the flickering light of a candle. All the Tiny Things.
The Friday after two large fires ravaged Los Angeles, my daughter returned to school and my husband and I went to Bob’s Big Boy. We have a thing for dinners. The vinyl booths, the nostalgia of old times past, the pancakes you can’t make at home. But this time, it was more than that. Bob’s Big Boy is in Burbank right down the street from Warner Brothers Studios. Many movie people go there daily. David Lynch made it his haunt for lunch for 7 years straight. He ordered the same thing daily - a chocolate shake and a cup of coffee. Why does any of this matter? Why did hundreds of people come by and leave letters, food, and keys to the Twin Peak Hotel at the alter of Bob himself? David Lynch was an artist who leaned into all things weird and wonderful. He said things like, "Keep your eye on the doughnut, not the hole.” He embraced his creative process and didn’t care if it was unconventional. In fact, his daily transcendental meditation practice and gluing his pants to get more wear out them - not conventional at all. But all kinds of fantastic.
I am not sure how I missed Andrea Gibson and her beautiful poetry. I can thank You Can Do Hard Things for introducing me to her work. I will leave a poem of hers here for you to read.
Acceptance Speech After Setting the World Record in Goosebumps
I wasn't by any means a natural.
Was not one of those wow-hounds
born jaw-dropped. I was tough in the husk.
Went years untouched by rain. Took shelter
seriously, even and often especially
in good weather, my tears like teenagers
hiding under the hoods of my eyes,
so committed they were to never falling
For the joke of astonishment.
When I was told there were seven
wonders of the world, I trusted the math,
believed I had seen none of them.
Of course beauty hunted me.
It hunts everyone. But I outran it, hid
in worry, regret, the promise of an afterlife
or a week's end.
Then one day, in a red velvet theater
in New Orleans, I watched Maya Angelou
walk on stage. Seventeen slow steps to the mic.
She took a breath before speaking,
and I could hear god being born in that breath.
My every pore reached out like a hand
pointing to the first unsinkable lotus in the bayou
of the universe. I'd never felt anything like it.
Searched the encyclopedia for the feeling's name
when I got home: "Goosebumps."
Afterward, I thought - I can do this.
Started training morning to night,
Crowbar swinging like a pendulum at the wall
of my chest. Tore the caution tape off
my life and let everything touch it:
Allen Iverson on the television in his first season
with the Sixers, crossover sharp as a V of sparrows
flying through the paint like Michelangelo's brush:
333 goosebumps.
My baby sister, sober for the first time
in thirteen years, calling to tell me she just noticed
our mother's eyes are green:
505 goosebumps.
One day, my friend scored tickets
to a Prince concert. Tiny venue. I was right
behind the sound booth. Prince's entire band
That evening--women. At the end of the show,
the sound person turned around and whispered,
He didn't play one song on his setlist the whole night.
I live on stages. I know what it is to scratch a plan
but not the whole trip and still arrive to your destination
two hundred years before your time:
421 (artist formerly known as) goosebumps.
But that's just the fancy stuff.
Some of them came from simple facts-
it rains diamonds on Jupiter
189 goosebumps.
Blood donors in Sweden receive
A thank-you message when their blood is used:
301 Nordic goosebumps.
One night in Ann Arbor, my friend
still undiagnosed, could not uncurl her fingers
to strum her guitar, so she sang the chords instead.
It was the first time in my life I'd seen pain
become an instrument:
10 dozen goosebumps
For each and every note plucked
From the string section of her refusal to silence
her dream. After that, nothing in the world was gray.
Even the movie of my past was released in color.
The oldest man in my hometown could not
get to the door to listen to our carols.
So we went inside and sang at his bedside instead.
Twenty-four boots on the front step
Catching snowflakes with their tongues:
776 goosebumps.
At one point everything started doing it:
A sincere apology: 221 goosebumps.
An enemy's love poem: 222 goosebumps.
The moon rising over the continental divide.
My girlfriend and I thought it was a car
driving off a cliff, and suddenly nothing
in the world was dying. You ever felt that?
A split second when nothing in the world is dying?
888 goosebumps,
and the next day I sharpened a tiny ax
So I could split the seconds myself.
Too much lives in a moment
to not feed it to the fire in the heart, slow.
A Missoula treehouse filled with candlelight:
143 goosebumps.
The octopus documentary:
54 goosebumps, multiplied by 8.
The biggest dog in the shelter
hiding behind a teacup chihuahua,
and the woman who came to adopt a cat
taking all three of them home:
1,012 goosebumps.
There is no escaping the magic now.
Beauty caught me and never let me go.
And the thing about the world record
Is-- if someone breaks it after me,
and they will break it after me,
I will love that so much
that without even trying,
I'll break it again.
Until Next Time ✨,
Kim