tell it small
the potential of small moments as story
She looked out the window. Knees bent. Legs tucked underneath her. One sock to the knee, the other gathered at the ankle. Yellow sweater with bumble bee on the pocket. Her eyes stoic. Her shoulders and head steady, still. Was she looking at something closely or was she wondering? I looked, I wondered. My heart loud, like footsteps coming to find me. She scratched behind her ear. Sniffled. Her eyes followed a bird across a patch of sky to take rest on a telephone pole. I saw a squirrel see this, too. The squirrel circled up. The bird watched the squirrel get closer, closer, very close, then flew. We both asked at the same time, “Did you see that?”
A small scene from a slice of time. My description of my watching of a child’s watching. More description than story. Yet still story.
In my teaching of writing with children, we call these “small moment” stories. Since children often tell “bed to bed” stories (wake up, go through a day, then go to bed), exploration of “small moment” stories helps children experiment with ways to narrow a frame and play with craft elements of description. Although I’ve always had an inclination for what’s small and simple, I believe my depth of learning about how to tell small stories about small things has been gifted to me from the wisdom of children.
Not just for children or the teaching of children, small moment stories are powerful modes of expression that open space for wonder about how we see and make meanings in our lives.
Here’s another small moment story. As you read it, let yourself go inside the smallness of the frame. Be present. Let yourself feel what you feel, notice what you notice, wonder what you wonder.
He selected the orange crayon, no paper covering. A broken piece, short. He used two fingers and a thumb to squeeze it. He looked at his fingers, how they held the crayon. His eyes steadied. He took the crayon towards his paper. A blank sheet, white, a small rip at the right corner. He formed a large circle in the middle of the page. Definitely more circle than oval. I felt happy for him, that circle, his tight grip on that small crayon. He began to tap orange dots inside the circle. Staccato. Like he was pounding nails. Or maybe leaping tiptoe in a forest. I wondered if he was counting. I wondered what he knew of the circle, the dots. I didn’t ask. He seemed to be inside the paper. I didn’t want to interrupt. But I smiled. I couldn’t help it. He noticed my smile and stopped his dotting. He looked at me, then at his paper, and nodded.
What happened for you in your reading/listening of this moment? Where did the moment take you?
I believe there is more here than richness of description. I accept the power of description, especially collaborative, layered description, and I’ve been nurtured throughout my career by various scholarship on description, especially my study of protocols (beginning with The Prospect Center’s work on Descriptive Review of the Child) and qualitative research methods (critical ethnography, portraiture, open inventory description). I also accept that our present tools and processes for(of) description barely scratch the surface of what is possible inside description.
Narrowing our frame to something small requires us to be deeply present with it (whether we describe something as it is happening, or as a moment of memory or dream). The power is in the synergy of our presence inside the moment and in our telling about what we notice as present. This ignites the potential alongside the listener (the listening) as essential for the moment to live as story.
What happens when we let a moment be small and tell it small?
We expand the moment.
When we narrow the frame of where we look, we see more of what is there. And we see more of how we see—how we notice, wonder, feel, interpret, and otherwise let ourselves be—with what’s there.
A narrow frame nudges us to go inside the moment where we can extend our process of exploring, seeing, re-seeing, and finding more (e.g., beginner’s mind, playful curiosity, knowing as unknowing). A wider frame compels us to step outside of the moment, see it at a distance, and use interpretation, synthesis, and summary in the composition of the telling. A wider frame prompts explaining, understanding, and positioning the moment, whereas a narrow frame invites playful exploration of infinite nuances inside the moment itself for further curiosity and discovery.
We trust its enoughness.
A focus on one small moment both requires trust and generates trust. There’s no need for the moment to be anything else or anything more. No need to “know” any meaning of the moment before telling it. No need for the moment to do any work (persuade, inspire, connect, be funny). No need to think about the moment before telling it.
The only thing to do is trust in whatever moment comes to you as something to tell and tell it—go inside it, look around, and describe what is present for you. As you begin to tell what you notice of the moment, its aliveness will connect with you, and whatever happens next will happen next. To practice trust in a small moment as enough is to also practice trust in ourselves as enough.
We honor wholeness.
Any moment, no matter how small, is whole in and of itself. The pool of sunshine upon my desk right now and the shadow of a leaf cast upon it. This is whole. I could go inside this and describe further. As I described further and you listened, more of the moment would emerge as itself. The sunshine, the shadow, me, and you—all part of the whole, not in addition to, or separate, from it.
The inherent wholeness of any small moment is the wholeness of you. When we honor a small object, a small moment, a small anything and let ourselves see it, re-see it, tell about it, listen to the telling… we immerse ourselves in beautiful, connective energy that shows us the essence of who we are in every small thing.
In the small telling of a single moment, both teller and listener enter an expansive space. The less of the moment invites the more of witness and wonder.
It’s in the overlap of the telling and listening inside a small frame where multiple stories (ways of knowing, seeing, imagining, being) can grow, where the essence of the moment itself—the seed—potentiates beyond (ever better, ever more) anything we could ever plan before we jump in.
I offer this essay as a beginning—an opening frame for us to go inside for further exploration. The power of a “tell it small” approach lives in its practice (and as a practice, it requires practice). Throughout November, my weekly posts will delve into various examples of small moments and multiple contexts where this approach has potential to significantly impact ways of being, depth of learning, meaningful conversations, opening of perspectives, influence of leadership, and ease of creative expression.
love+light, Melissa
Small moment stories are powerful modes of expression that open space for wonder about how we see and make meanings in our lives.
The power is in the synergy of our presence inside the moment and in our telling about what we notice as present.
In the small telling of a single moment, both teller and listener enter an expansive space. The less of the moment invites the more of witness and wonder.
You might also like to read: Why small objects? or watch: What is noticing?
