Slice of Life Meets SmallStories

(This is for the Slice of Life challenge, hosted by Two Writing Teachers. We write on Tuesdays about the small moments in the larger perspective … or is that the larger perspective in the smaller moments? You write, too.)

Maybe I am a bit lazy this morning. Maybe I just want to close the gap between the writing I do in one space with the writing I do in another space. Maybe I want to create a reminder to myself — this blog is how I curate my writing life, after all — that I have pretty consistently taking the concept of Slice of Life (the small moments, made larger through reflective writing) into pieces I create for Small Stories over on Mastodon, on a pretty regular basis.

I didn’t create the Small Stories ideas there on Mastodon. That was the idea of some networked friends who wanted to explore rich stories of connectedness and kindness. But I have been pretty consistent, using it as a place to wander with ideas and voice. Like Twitter, a character limit on Mastodon is a forced invitation to edit, to narrow, to find the exact word that means what you want to say and delete the extraneous.

Here are the last seven Small Stories I wrote over the past week:

Not remembering to check the forecast before sleep, as I am apt to do in these wintry days of New England, I was hit hard in the face this morning with a wallop of cold, biting wind. It made my eyes tear and then the tears froze on my cheek. I bent my head, kept trudging. The dog stopped with every howl of wind, as if listening to some ancient call of warning. Trees groaned but held their own against the violent sway. Some days just start wild and all you can do is forge ahead.

Who do you imagine in your mind as you write? Sometimes, an audience of one. You. Me. Sometimes, the sphere expands. Co-centric circles of Them. Yesterday, I found myself with an imaginary writer in my mind, watching her write. It was clear she was all paper/pen, not keyboard/screen. Something about font/ink brought her to life. Gave her form. From there, I had something underway before I knew it, as if she had written the song about herself through me. I can hardly explain it.

I was at a stop sign when I noticed a father and a son, maybe 7 years old, on the sidewalk. At their feet was something silver. Tin foil. A huge, massive piece of tin foil. The father was pointing at it and the boy offered up a questioning look. The father nodded. The boy leaped into the air, landing two feet on the tin foil. Then the boy began a puddle dance on top of the tin foil, a look of pure ecstasy on his young face. I couldn’t hear or feel the foil, but one can imagine.

My wife and I wandered downtown for “Arts Night Out.” An impromptu Bluegrass jam session took place in one store. In another, the son of the late saxophonist/composer Charles Neville was tucked in a corner, improving full jazz compositions to a small audience. We watched with wonder at Khalif Neville’s long fingers dancing over the keyboard, never hesitating on a note or melody, as songs flowed from his mind to our ears. We sipped wine, listened with appreciation.

We were walking out of the concert hall with our son, congratulating him on the concert band performance.
“We did OK,” he said, “but in the second song, the kid next to me let rip a huge burp.”
He stopped and looked at us.
“Did you hear it?”
Now, there were hundreds of people in the audience and nearly 100 musicians on stage.
“Nope,” my wife laughed. “We didn’t hear that.”
“Now, if he had farted …” I added, but my son quickly cut me off.
“Your fart jokes are the worst, dad.”

My son’s band director lost her mother this week. Yet there she was, in the lights, directing the middle school jazz and concert bands before a packed audience. She referenced her mother more than once from the stage, a presence in her musical life as performer and teacher. At the end of the night, a parent took the mic, expressed our collective support for this amazing teacher of our children. She truly is. The entire auditorium, hundreds of us, rose in an act of community love.

The box says “free” yet there’s nothing in the box. I pass by it two different days in my car but don’t have time to stop. So I am stopping now in story to consider the Box of Free. For, is it the Box itself that is free? It’s a nice box. Looks solid. Or is it whatever was in the Box that was free? Whatever it was is now long gone. Still, the Box remains. Perhaps it is this: the story of the Box is freely given and taken, and here I am, passing the Box along to you. Use it wisely.

Peace (made large by small moments),
Kevin

4 Comments
  1. I am running late this morning…and your short stories grabbed my attention and filled these few moments I have with wonderful thoughts and images. You capture the true meaning of “Slice of Life” in your writing.

  2. I enjoyed each of your stories. Each of them has their own tone and a bit of whimsy about them. I do think, the character who write in pen and ink sounds like a character I’d like to read more about. I also loved how I seemed to know how each of the stories came about but yet so short and packed. Lovely challenge.

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