Small Things Matter Most
advice from a poet and nature worship always and forever
Years ago I had the honor of attending a reading by the Palestinian-American poet Naomi Shihab Nye. After the reading I took my place in the long line to meet her, to thank her, and have her sign my book of poems. I’d recently begun dating the man who I would later come to be my husband. Naomi had read a poem about love and marriage, about staying the course as I recall, though if you pressed me for which poem, I cannot say. When it came my turn to stand in front of this great poet, (and I am forever indebted too and enamored by the poets I love), I shyly asked her for relationship advice. She nodded, smiled warmly at me, and wrote out four words
"small things matter most.”
I cannot find her book of poems right now, because uh… children and open book shelves at toddler height, but the power of that sentiment is with me now.
(If you’re unfamiliar with her work here’s a good poem to begin with, Burning the Old Year).
This past Saturday I attended a party and it was held at a local park by a lake we frequent in the summer. My daughter has to go in water whenever she sees it- puddles, ponds, creeks, rivers, lakes - no matter the season. Her whole presence took on a different state of being as she knelt by the edge of the water in a kind of playful reverence. Her approach itself was akin to courtship- she didn’t just immediately jump in- she knelt by the edge, touched the water to see how cold it was, threw some rocks in. Then she put a toe in while still in her shoes. I told her she was welcome to take her shoes off and that I had a change of clothes for her (of course). Too late, both shoed feet were in and then I fussed at her and she skipped over… already lost in the pleasure of being with the lake. I took her shoes and socks off. She gingerly made her way across the rocky beach back to the lake edge. She put her toes in, then both feet, and next I knew she was in up to her knees; then spread her arms out and began to sing a song I could not catch the lyrics of, but a song I knew she was making up there on the spot, as she sings to herself all of the time. What a powerful thing to witness for me as her Mother, my only daughter- singing a song to the lake, completely un-self conscious as only certain people are allowed to be, in such a state of joy in her body and union with this cold body of water that I wish all people could experience all of the time.
She turned to me at one point as if jolted by a thought and said something akin to…
"This my place! This is my home! I’m from here. I know this water. I know this place! This water knows me!”
I nodded and said "Yes, you were born in Bellingham. You’re made of this land and these waters. I swam in this lake when I was pregnant with you growing inside me. We brought you here when you were just a baby. I can’t wait til summer when it’s warm again and we’ll get to swim together like we did last summer!”
And she smiled, nodded and went back to singing to Lake Whatcom.
P.S. some notes on writing and money
I’ve hemmed and hawed over the past few months about dissolving this writing project. Instead I’m going to honor my capacity and write what I want when I can. I turned off paid subscriptions for a while because I felt guilty for taking money from people when I am not producing consistently. This blog made me $534 last year after Stripe takes its processing fees. Hiring a writer on a freelance site costs around $35 an hour. Often I write anywhere from 10-20 hours a month, and by writing I also mean reading, researching, vetting sources, choosing images when I need too etc. When you do the math then, if I were to try to assign a monetary value for the care and effort I put into this space my take home pay ought to be closer to $8,400 a year; wouldn’t that be nice? It is hard to keep going sometimes without witness from the other side of the screen. Writing by definition is a solitary project. Thus all of your comments, your likes, and your emails mean a lot. But sometimes I’m left to wonder are writers only valued if they can produce neat enraging/witty/or inspiring content on a weekly basis?
There are a lot of good writers on here and I support several of them financially. Being paid for creative work is reassuring as it’s also a way to bear witness and a way to say "I hear you. I value what you are doing. Thank you.” With the ever gutting of social supports, the funding of endless war, the intensity and terror I feel when I think about the prevalence of artificial intelligence and the surveillance state, the endless corrupt webs of money and power…. I think however we can put our money in small ways towards people, projects, and places we love matters more than ever right now…
Thus, I am turning on paid subscriptions again as a way to honor my small writing efforts.
If you appreciate my writing please consider becoming a paid subscriber. I’ve recently lowered fees so that a monthly subscription is $7/ a month as opposed to $8, and a year subscription fee is $75 as opposed to $96.
If you’d like a send a one time tip my Venmo is @EleanorJBurke
Thanks for being here regardless! A free and easy way to support this writing project is to like this post and email it to a friend.
Maybe you’d like to read more about raising kids as a fledging animist? If so may I direct your attention here to something I wrote in 2023?
Or maybe you’d like to go back to my original post in 2023 on my thinking of what it means to be a "Wannabe Animist?” My thinking and practice of these matters continues to ebb/flow/deepen/change course. I love to learn from others what practicing Animism means to them.