Harper and I are putting together party favors for her birthday party. We have Now ‘n Laters, Blow Pops, a block of clay, and a key chain piled in take-out boxes you’d get at Chinese restaurants. We bought ours at Micheals.
Two favors, a sheet of stickers and a magic marker with a poof of yarn at the top, do not fit. We figured this at the store, but Harper and I really wanted those boxes, and stood in front of them for a bit, thinking.
“I know,”Harper said. “We can keep the stickers and markers outside, and at the party, everyone can use those to decorate their boxes.”
“Brilliant,” I said, and lifted a pack of take out boxes off the hook.
Now, I am rolling a sheet of stickers and trying to tie it with yarn we have left over from previous years of crafts, and my failed attempts at learning to knit.
I cut a section of purple yarn that’s too small, and complain out loud about my mistake.
“Remember my Kindergarten art teacher?” Harper asks.
I do not, but it’s no matter. Harper remembers her, and she passes on a lesson: “She said if you’re cutting ribbon, or yarn, or string it’s best to cut it big.”
“Makes sense,” I say, untangling a piece of yellow yarn the length of my arm.
Harper continues, “Because you can always make big things small, but it’s harder to make small things big.”
Harper and I have the ability to make small things big. It is probably our greatest strength and greatest weakness. I depend on this ability in my writing. I attempt to take whatever it is that’s been give to me, and create a story with it in the hopes that some universal truth is named.
But I also tend to get overwhelmed at the drop of a hat, and I like the idea of making what seems incredible and too much, small. When it comes to writing, I think what prevents us from even beginning are the big questions, the truths we tell ourselves, and the stories we don’t know how, or refuse to break down into something small.
What if my writing is awful?
What if I don’t write the story accurately?
There’s no time for me to write.
Writing takes me away from my family.
This story is too painful.
What if your writing is awful, but there was something in it that you named that settled something inside you? Could you return to it and try again?
What if you don’t get the story right and you learn something you hadn’t realized or thought of before? Could you follow what you now know?
There’s never enough time to write, but what can you do with five minutes? What can you do in the carpool line? While the coffee’s brewing? What if you decide to take one day off from everything and write?
Writing takes us away from our families, but what if it brings us back to them, too?
This story is too painful, but is there anything besides the pain you see, no matter how small?
I’m wondering now if making big things small means changing our perspective so that we can hold on to what seems monstrous a little longer, until it’s as though it’s an infant, in desperate need of our care.
I am writing a series of Writing Pep Talks, and you can find the first ten on Exhale, a Creative Marketplace put on by Coffee+Crumbs. My friend and fellow writer, Jennifer Batchelor, designed them. They come with space to write your own thoughts and observations, so it’s set up like a mini-journal. They are available here. (Also, check out my Writing Faithfully Course, that will begin in February.)
Happy New Year!
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