23 Jan Sweating The Small Stuff

Nicola Allen finds that it’s the little things that often have the biggest impact on our lives.

When I see such things I’m no longer sure 
that what’s important
 is more important than what’s not.
–Wislawa Szymborska

I am sitting now at a computer on the other side of the world from my country of birth, because of a decision to attend a dance. The bar was busy, somehow an orderly queue had formed, and I found myself standing behind the man who, two years later, would become my husband.

Every day, each of us makes hundreds of decisions, often at a subconscious level. Many of these involve assessing our priorities, and apparently trivial choices can have far-reaching consequences.

I was hearing the children in my son’s class read yesterday. One little boy was uninterested and struggling – reading was quite clearly not his favourite activity. We hit the word ‘anthropology’ in a book that was otherwise designed for 8 year olds, and I found myself saying, “Let’s look it up”.
We went through three class dictionaries with no success. Just as I was about to set it for him as a homework assignment, the class teacher appeared with a ‘grown-up’ dictionary.

Now this little boy, who had been battling to read, transformed instantly into a word-hungry ‘dictionary-phile’. He found the word very quickly with minimum guidance and, for the first time in the two years that I have known him, looked me right in the eyes and smiled. I was left wondering how different the result would have been had I decided to continue his reading practice without consulting a dictionary.

My grandmother used to say, “Look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves”. I loved my grandmother dearly, but I never really believed her. I think I was on 20 cents pocket money at the time, and I relished the idea of crumpling a five-dollar note in my hand.

But I recalled my grandmother’s wise words when I became the harassed mother of two small and active children. Surviving the day with the house and my nerves intact was often a struggle. I was saved only by a dear friend who passed on some very simple tips. One involved writing everything down (I have a very poor short-term memory).

I am not a naturally organised person, being more at home with a backpack than in a house, and I soon learned that paying attention to this small, seemingly insignificant detail often released me to enjoy my day.

I also remember dashing out of the house one morning to put the washing on the line and hearing the door slam shut as my three-year-old son chortled away. His laughter soon turned to screams as he realised that Mummy really could not get back in. Fortunately my patient friend sent over her teenage son, who was through the window in a jiffy. Needless to say, putting the latch on the door is now almost as instinctive to me as breathing.

Parents soon learn that paying attention to some very simple things can have a huge impact.

I have learnt to listen to those ‘unimportant’ words my children sometimes mutter as they storm off to their bedroom, feeling thwarted in some way. Sometimes these tell me more than I have learnt in an entire day about what is really in their heart: “I was just trying to help Mummy with the washing”.

I now look at things that I previously ignored, and complete tasks that I previously skipped.

Last week I took the time to go through my husband’s photos and produce a concise pictorial biography of the past 15 years. No other gift has ever had such an impact on him. He gazed reminiscently at the images of him in Belgium, standing next to that bronze sculpture of a small boy answering nature’s call, of him standing next to the Eiffel Tower, the Little Mermaid… Later he resisted gibes from work colleagues about his age, saying that, at 43, he was happy to have achieved so many of his hopes and dreams.

Sometimes we need to take time out from all the ‘important’ stuff and notice the little things.