Small Things Like These
On flowers and lightness and the bravery of children
E-
I meant to tell you…oh really so many things, since I disappeared to finish my book. And the many things I’ve meant to tell you are all small. Which is not like me, I know. I tend toward maximalism. I read – and write -- long books. I like peonies over violets, epics over haiku. David Bowie over Brian Eno. And yet, during these past weeks, I’ve needed small things to fill small spaces of time, and maybe you do, too.
Remember the Japanese show “Old Enough”? I think you first told me about it during the pandemic. A few weeks ago, Ash and I returned to it, because we’re so close to finishing Better Things, but we don’t want to finish Better Things. Who does? So to slow ourselves down, we started watching Japanese toddlers running errands by themselves. Remember the flags they hold to cross the street? The fish they buy at the market? Our favorite so far is a three-year-old who can’t remember the name of the noodles she’s supposed to buy and keeps walking home to ask. Each time she leaves the house, she repeats the name of the noodle over and over. And then her face turns blank and grows worried, and she says, “Oh no! What’s it called?” She’s forgotten again. It’s very relatable! And while each episode contains the suspense and joy of an epic – will the tiny child deliver his brother’s lunch to kindergarten? – it’s done in ten minutes, no cliff hangers, nothing to ruminate about.
Oh I love plot. I really do. But I needed a break from it in all parts of my life. I put aside Dream Count and picked up Sarah Ruhl’s 100 Essays I Don’t Have Time to Write. Ruhl was on my mind, since Susannah is thinking of directing Ruhl’s play Orlando at her high school next year.
How to talk about this perfect book? The essays are small, at most a few pages, but deep. The titles alone delight me: “Gobos, crickets, and false exits: three hobgoblins of false mimesis” or “It’s beautiful, but I don’t like it.”
Look at this essay, which I’ll copy out in its entirety:
“An essay in praise of smallness
I admire minimalism.”
And I admire Ruhl’s admiration of it. My copy of the book is well-worn and covered with notes and opens automatically to my favorite essay “Calvino and Lightness.” It’s just two short paragraphs and yet I’ve used it as a guiding principle for years. How to write about heavy stuff with lightness? It essay ends, “Lightness is then a philosophical victory over heaviness. A reckoning with the humble and the small and the invisible.”
I just saw on Ruhl’s Instagram today that a few nights after her play Euridyce opened in New York, she’s off to a Buddhist meditation retreat in Ireland, and that seems like quite a brilliant life – and a great way to avoid plot.
Another small thing I’ve been enjoying: Tiny gluten free tacos. A niche need, perhaps but if any one out there requires celiac-safe, very small, very good tacos, I found us a place! Bartaco is a chain, scattered all over this country; the one I discovered was in West Hartford. The music was loud. I was alone reading Sarah Ruhl, eating many tiny tacos, unworried about cross-contamination. It’s not a small thing, feeling safe. As Sarah is surely saying on her meditation retreat in Ireland: May we be safe, may we be happy, may we be healthy, may we live in peace. May we find small things to help us wait for better things.
I meant to keep this minimal but what we admire is not always what we do. Next time! I’m so glad to finally be here with you, Erin, and all of you.