The Importance of Being Tiny
moments of connection through perspective
This starfish is so tiny that it fits on a fingertip. It doesn’t realize it’s tiny, of course, or contemplate how very vast I am in comparison. It’s just being what it is.
But I realize how tiny it is! And my excited little girl realizes how tiny it is! “Oh my goodness, look at how cute it is! It’s so tiny and perfect!!!”
In this moment, as my little girl discovered a tiny starfish by a vast ocean and held it on the tip of one tiny finger, her eyes filled with delight and my heart overflowed. The tiny-ness is overwhelming!
Tiny-ness, in itself, is a wonderful thing. It inspires such enchantment, such compassion, such marvel and fascination, such widespread affection and goodwill. I like to be drawn in by tiny-ness, to look closer, to coil my thoughts around the warm feeling that something so tiny is yet so entirely, completely, perfectly a force of life, just like me.
I like to further imagine the tiny-ness that I can’t see. Perhaps there is something tinier-still…Something so tiny its whole world is contained in a single droplet. On the fingertip. Of the tiny starfish.
It’s somehow enormously comforting to know that we are quite big in a world where tiny life is happening all around us, all the time. It makes you feel a little protective, a little necessary, a little softly amazed.
And then, on the other hand, I love to see my children tiny in a vast landscape. It makes the air feel full of promise and all of time saturated with preludes to memories, possibilities endless.
They aren’t even that far away from me, actually. They’re within the reach of my voice. They’re close enough for me to get there in a second if they need help. But just look how tiny they look, and how vast the world…
How their tiny gazes stretch out to endless horizons…
How their tiny explorations unfold boundless prospects…
How their tiny wonders span the reaches of imagination…
It’s somehow enormously comforting to know that we are tiny in a great big world, as well. It makes you feel a little held, a little connected, a little softly amazed.
It’s a warm feeling, this thread of life that connects the very tiny, to us, to the enormously vast. Each of us a world unto ourselves, each of us a tiny speck scintillating in reflected light broadcast from a world that is bigger than all we can imagine. The air is full of promise and all of time is saturated with possibilities.
When our family moved to Maine in 2016 to begin our homestead life, of course we had the outlines of a five year plan. Who doesn’t, right? But two years into our five year plan, my mom in Texas began to show signs of advancing Alzheimer’s. Her two older siblings had preceded her into Alzheimer’s, and although Mom steadfastly refused to believe it would ever happen to her, my husband and I had spent some time understanding the road that might lay ahead.
When her symptoms escalated, our five year plan was set aside, replaced by what was more of a constant exercise in evaluation and reprioritization. What would we need to do next to prepare for Mom’s care? In the fall of 2022, we boarded up our little Maine homestead and moved to Texas to care for Mom in her home until she passed. We returned home in July of 2023.
Now, for the first time in five years, our five year plan is our own again. And it seems so huge. After such a long stall, it’s hard to even imagine that it might ever happen, what it might ever look like. Every step seems swallowed far beyond the horizon of possibility.
But one tiny step always follows another, as sure as ten feet of tides creep imperceptibly across the shore. One tiny step follows another right straight out to that distant horizon of possibility. It’s all a matter of perspective. We’re only very tiny in a wide world, after all!
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Love this! We are indeed only a tiny part of the bigger picture. But I also love the reminder that tiny steps matter. Any small step takes a further towards the goal. Thank you!
Really nice post and that tiny-ness pervades everything in some sense. I think of that tiny-ness containing the world sometimes when I look at something like a pinecone or see a small Warbler here in spring. The pine cone contains so much of what came before it but also the potential for what will come after it. Similarly with the Warbler. Migrating across thousands of miles over and over, with predecessor as well as potential offspring for the future. To think of all of the connections is astounding.