I recently read some shocking news on Facebook: a close family friend of Jonah’s had suffered a serious stroke. This woman is married to one of Jonah’s closest high-school friends. She is young—in her early 40’s. She lives a healthful life—she’s vegetarian, aware of and …
Sometime during my year of thinking and seeing small, I began taking photos of beauty within decomposition. I’d focus on rust on crumbling metal pipes and fences, peeling paint and cracks on dilapidated buildings, tiny holes in stucco, lichen of all colors on rotting wood. …
It’s difficult to practice thinking and seeing small when you first arrive in France. Your cell phone isn’t working, you’ve just tasted one of the best cheeses you’ve ever sampled in your life, you’re trying to speak French every chance you get—and at the same …
I’ve just understood that at rare moments in a lifetime, something can be simultaneously small and large. And I have Stephen to thank for this discovery. We were on our way to SFO Monday, chatting with our lyft driver, when an awful realization burst in …
Who wouldn’t feel overwhelmed in my shoes? I’m leaving a home I love for two months in France—which I also love. Besides being faced with so very much to complete, arrange, provide and plan for, I’m struggling with all the emotions triggered by separation. This …
Last weekend, when we were in Pasadena visiting my stepson, Nathan, his wife, Corinne, and our grandson Miles, at dinner on Friday night, Nathan suggested putting our fork down after every bite. He’s becoming certified as a nutrition counselor, and this was one of the …
I have to confess to feeling perpetually disappointed that my book has sold so few copies. It’s a disappointment that still hovers over me, sometimes at quite an altitude, other times much closer to my head. For months, I did my best to promote “Small,” …
Walking to a lunch with friends today, I thought back to my experience at Limontaur, last week, traveling from the beach back to the parking lot. I remembered how, starting out, I was already impatient to arrive, how I caught myself and began paying attention …
Near the end of the block I walk several times a week to the Monterey Market, a young man turned out of a front walk just ahead of me, holding a stack of doorknob announcements in his left hand. As I passed him, I could …
This will be a wonderful experience of small, I thought last Saturday, when I learned about the initial exercise in the communications workshop I had joined: each of us eight participants was to spend a few minutes alone with a pinto named Reno in his …