Our Daughter’s Best Birthday Present Ever, by Rebecca Dolch

When Lydia turned three, her best friend Beth took a rubber band and cut it, making one longer piece. She wrapped scotch tape around each end and put it into a small box wrapped with birthday paper. When Lydia opened it, she turned to her 4-year-old bestie and said: “Bethy! I love it! A jump rope for my dolly.” They understood each other then. They are still best friends 35 years later.

Buttons Are Such Small Things, by Susan Annah Currie

We found a black, two-hole button on the car floorboard. It was a bit dirty and had a single black thread through one of the holes. What did it fall off of? Does one of us have a blouse or sweater with a missing button? Should I go through the closet and look for everything that has black buttons to be sure each button is secure and not missing? Or does it belong to a friend who, even now, is looking at a black sweater missing the bottom button and wondering what happened to it? Come to think of it, most things have zippers now — or Velcro. I wonder if the story of the discovery of Velcro is true? Was someone trying to get prickly, sticking burrs off a coat and suddenly had a eureka moment? "I will make Velcro to fasten coats and shoes and pants!" I imagine a cowboy getting off his horse back at the ranch, the sleeves of his coat covered in burrs like cockle burrs or sweet gum balls. Did he abandon buttons altogether? They are such small things.

All the Ways I will Not Be Perfect Today, by Yvette Rubio

All the ways I will not be perfect today:


I'll sweep the floor and leave the pile for later.

I'll make tea and leave the soggy tea leaves in the pot until tomorrow.

I'll have hundreds of judgmental thoughts about everyone else's life.

I won't file the pile of bills on my desk.

I'll inevitably say something that will annoy someone I love.

I'll cut the avocado horizontally, an imperfection my older son pointed out to me this Christmas.

I'll not pluck the white eyebrow hair that sticks straight out.

I won't work on family history research.

I'll watch too much on Netflix.

I'll read half of what I intended of the books I checked out from the library.

I won't recycle as much as I should.

I won't compost at all.

Goodbye Little Heart, by Jayne Demakos

It was a small earring, the first gift from a boyfriend.1995.
A unique, little pewter heart with three little freshwater pearls hanging from the bottom.
It fell from the dresser a few months ago
my mother’s dresser — so broad.
It can hold so much stuff, too much stuff;
this little heart with a broken clasp.
Where do these things go, these little objects?
Without a trace, in no crack or wedge
this little heart, these little white pearls wandering around in the universe.
I always think, “you are not lost, you are somewhere.”
And so I do the small work of letting go, a practice for the big ones.
“Goodbye little heart.”
"Goodbye three little pearls taken from the sea."
"You had to say goodbye once, too, didn’t you.”
“Goodbye last little dusty thread to said boyfriend.”
“Perhaps this is goodbye.”

Childhood Memory of Something Small, by Saskya van Nouhuys

I am a child. I am at the beach. I am lying on a towel waiting to get warm again so I can go back into the waves. I play idly with smooth bits of glass and dried sea weed. Then, restless, I scan the people around me, looking for some entertainment. I focus on a tiny blue-black spot on my mother’s right thigh. I ask her what it is. She explains that when she was a child she sat on a pencil. It punctured her skin and the tip broke off inside her, and it has been there ever since. I marvel at the absurd notion that my mother was once a child.