What might one say of small things?
That they are the things that bring few surprises, that cause no sudden rush of emotion, no gasp, nor wonderment, but which give our lives the texture we recognize so well.
The familiar is but its very definition always there;
The familiar is by its repetition rather like a tune we learn as children, stubbornly present; good old 4/4 time or the insistent metre Longfellow used when he wrote Hiawatha.
Lin Yutang, who wrote such charming essays on reading, and drinking tea, and the conditions that offend flowers, asked a much bigger question when he said: what is patriotism but the love of the good things we ate in childhood?
He expected no answer: Rhetorical questions never do;
But he was wrong:
Patriotism is more than that,
But the good things we ate in childhood certainly were good; as were the summers and the friends we had, and everything that lodges in the cobwebby corners of memory.
If you were to ask me how I would like the rest of my life to be, I would say the same. The same friends are the ones I want about me; the same places are the places I want to wake up to.
The world is wide, but it is the corners that are comfortable; so too in our lives small things remain, reassure us.
Moments with friends and family, inconsequential remarks. These things mean the world; they mean the world.
Alexander McCall Smith
Fall Author Event for the Ogden School Foundation
One side note to this, I love meeting new people, making new friends, and exploring different places. That, too, adds to the fabric of my life.
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