The Music of the Miniscule 8/22/2021

By: Jennifer Richardson Holt

I saw something the other day that I have never seen before. Now mind you, it is something that has probably been there for me to see before now, but I didn’t see it until the last few days.  While driving to work the bright August sun was in my face.  Because of this everything between my eyes and said sun was set ablaze.  It was among all the dew drenched and sunbathed bits of nature that I just happen to stumble upon quite the spectacle.  On the side of the road, stretched between the cables of power lines were countless, randomly placed sparkling spider webs.  They were all golden, rough ovals scattered between the straight lines.  There was no way that you could look at them and not see the uncanny resemblance to musical notes. Those power lines have always been on this drive.  I am sure that spiders didn’t only JUST discover that they made good anchors for webbing.  The sun has shone, and the dew has fallen for eons before I saw this but just then the light caught the silk and showed me a symphony written by nature that I had never seen the likes of before. I am glad that I saw this because it gave me a staunch reminder that I really needed.  There are so many things happening all around us that we need to stop and see.  There was a downright magical scene set before me that even the slightest glance of inattention would have allowed me to miss. Who would have thought that a mixture of silk and sun could have taught me a lesson in attentiveness?!

My very first blog entry actually touched on this topic.  In it I talked about keeping really special moments close to heart, what I referred to as “mason jar moments”.  I feel like I may have forgotten this to an extent.  In that blog I talked more about those really significant moments. I feel like those moments tend to grab you more.  I mean everyone has seen some sunrise or sunset that would allow nothing but a person to bask in it.  I daresay most have had some delicious dish that, whether due to pure unadulterated magnificence of flavor or depth of sentimental attachment, left a very permanent mark in their memory.  Things like that are the type of things that, I personally feel, you don’t really let so much pass you by. We all have at least a handful of those stored away within our minds for referral.  I am not so sure though that we really try to collect the lesser moments. I don’t think they are less in value, but they are less eye catching.  They could be just as enchanting, but they don’t really force their way into your vision.  I think I need to be more purposeful in the things that I pay attention to.  I don’t need to wait for something to be painfully obvious for it to grab my attention.

Lately I am noticing more and more of the little things that are moments in time that seem small, but they are things that, by the time you realize that you really should have committed them to memory, they are gone. Music on power lines isn’t the only thing I have seem for the first time lately.  For anyone who has had the magical adventure of parenthood you may be able to relate to what I mean. If you read last week’s blog, you know that my daughter just began the adventure that is school.  The big firsts are easily catalogued into the recesses of the mind.  In thinking of the big first though, it made me wonder how many little things I had missed.  I had the privilege of being able to work from home for almost a whole year. Did I really take full advantage of that?  Did I really collect those tiny bits and weave them into the tapestry that is my recollections of her childhood?   Did I make note of how she laughs when she thinks something is desperately funny?  Did I mark down how her eyes sparkle when chocolate is placed before her? I fear I didn’t. I fear that I let so much slip by and I will never get that time back.

 And, as if on cue, a blonde head just came and sat by me.  There is a toy pink mermaid in one hand and a plastic fish and seahorse in the other.  There is a request on the table for me to play with her. First instinct is to tell her I need to write.  But is not this what I am actually writing ABOUT?  While pretending to be a plastic mermaid isn’t something I would put on my list of thrilling things to do per se, how much longer will I get the opportunity to do this? Of course I burned into my mind the image of her walking into school on her first day ever, but what about how she squeals when she is playing with her Daddy in the water or other everyday occurrences?  These times are seemingly insignificant.  But what if, in my haste to do all the random tasks at hand, I overlook something as bewitching as tiny creatures writing music in the sun?  I don’t want that to be the story of my life.  May I never get so busy that I don’t store away the moments that I wish I could remember but never went to the effort to really experience them.  No one has to tell me to keep up with the holidays or the landmarks, but may I always keep an eye open to the background details since very often they add the most sparkling notes to the symphony.