Yes, It Is the Little Things

A friend posed the question this evening, and I answered without thinking. 

She asked, "Is it the little things?"

I was getting ready to sit down and write so I didn't click through and read her blog post. I will, of course, later, and I'm feeling a tiny bit like the dueling church signs in a favorite series of photos that have church signs discussing whether or not dogs go to Heaven. 

"Is it the little things?"

"Yes. It is the little things."

I think about this a lot as I've been writing about happiness this summer and cultivating happiness while I'm at it. And here's my take on the little things:

They fill the spaces between the big things to bring the day-to-day contentment that we read over time as happiness.

They also hold space for the big things when those are out of whack. 

I've lived in both spaces this summer and have experienced the joy in the little things in both ways. 

Today my daughter and I drove down to my mother's and celebrated her birthday with a pop-up gathering with her uncles, aunts, and cousins. We ordered carry out from a favorite place and sang the family songs as she gazed into the candlelight in the darkened room, taking in the love all around her. Curiously, this was a little thing and a big thing at the same time.  

Curiously, but not surprisingly.

A Hundred Days of Happiness is a daily writing practice that opens a landscape of discovery into my own human experience.

Katherine Cartwright has been blogging since 2012, and each year brings new wonders. She asks big questions of the small things in life.

Art: hand painted by a friend of my great-grandparents. It hung over my grandmother's bed when she was a little girl, and then over my mother's, and then over mine. My daughter has slept beneath it as well on occasion when visiting my mom. Tonight, it hangs over the bed I'm sleeping in while visiting my mom with my daughter.