Love in the Small Things

Some chamomile flowers to gladden the heart.

Let me just begin by saying how tired I am of living in unprecedented times, and I would love to have the chance to live in some boring, precedented times for a little while, please and thank you.

None of what is happening in our country is normal. Things feel dark and heavy. But, also, the sun came up this morning in these North Carolina mountains, light filtering through pillowy mist, and a wood thrush greeted the day with a fluting, liquid song, and rain from last night slid from the trees in pleasing syncopation and from the next room came the delighted belly-laugh of my two-and-a-half-year-old granddaughter.

How marvelous to currently be in a place where I’m able to peer at the world through her eyes. She has a favorite tree she has befriended. She used to hug it and sometimes would take a new toy out to show it, speak to it in a language none of us but the tree could understand. She doesn’t do that as much any more, although the tree is clearly still beloved, as she pays homage whenever we pass by.

She also likes to stand in the driveway and examine rocks. And ants. And leaves. And dirt. And mud. She likes to bring stones into the house and introduce them to her things. In her world, everything is alive. Everything has meaning and value.

Last week I brought her to the library. She loses her mind every time we go. There are Legos and a wooden train track with a tiny wooden crane, and puppets, and an enormous green turtle pillow and a giant sparkly multicolored dragon pillow. There are books and puzzles and a very large chalkboard with chunks of fat chalk, and there are always other kids.

There are also stacks to run through, which she did last week, clutching an impossibly soft giraffe stuffie while I scurried along behind her. At one point, before disappearing around the stack labeled MYSTERY, she hollered back over her shoulder, “There’s so much to see!”

I do a crossword puzzle every morning to wake up my tired brain. Today, one of the answers was nota bene. Latin for note well, often abbreviated as N.B. in citations, but I never read that as scholarly direction. Instead, I hear a voice coming from somewhere, whispering with urgency, “Pay attention!”

There’s so much to see. The shadowy times we are living in can often obscure the many beautiful, small wonders that we are literally steeped in. We may be lulled into stupor by the oppressive news cycles (I too often am), but that doesn’t erase the fact that everyday miracles are our daily bread.

The phrase, “to see the Universe in a blade of grass” keeps playing in my head, echoes of William Blake, a Zen koan, Rabindranath Tagore, Walt Whitman, Jesus, and others who point us toward the multitude of wonders hidden in plain sight, small things that are portals to what I call “the world behind the world.” I am trying to let it all filter through the many noisy distractions. Nota bene.

This week our Farmers Market had bunches of fresh chamomile flowers for sale, and I ordered some, thinking to make tea or infused facial oil, but also because they are the sweetest little flowers, delicate and fine with clean white petals and a golden yellow center. When I opened the bag, I was immediately overwhelmed by a scent reminiscent of freshly cut alfalfa, and it sent me back to a cool evening on our farm in northeastern Ohio, to the edge of the wide green meadow where we pastured the horses in summer. The air was thick with the perfume of new-mown alfalfa, sweet and apple-y, and, listen, I’m not saying alfalfa is an aphrodisiac but also I can’t think of anything else that makes me want to take off all my clothes and run through a field naked on a moonlit night more than that luscious, heady smell. And I don’t know why. I don’t know what gets triggered. All I do know is, on a primal level, way down deep, some universal chord vibrates all the senses. I am awake. I am noticing. I let beauty rise above shadow. I feel alive again.

What are the small things that get your attention? That bring you back to the body you are in, remind you of the feel of the good earth beneath your feet? Of something wild and mysterious in the air you breathe, something that draws you forward?

What opens the portal to your world-behind-the-world? And how do you “note well”?

Cairns by the Yellowstone River, Paradise Valley, Montana. July 2017.