From Writing as a Sacred Path:
The next time you find yourself in a crowd, focus for one moment on some small thing. In the crush of a department store, spend a moment watching a little girl holding a doll. On a packed commuter train, focus on the play of light on the windows. Stuck in traffic amid short-tempered drivers and blaring horns, glance upward to see the clouds moving across the sky. In this way, you can find solitude and silence in the busiest of places.
I did not invent the notion of turning aside. I discovered it in the writing of psychologists, and in conversations with people who seem to get through the most stressful of situations with grace. It is such a simple idea—and such an easy thing to do. Yet, I have found it one of the most useful techniques I know for finding my way through noise, urgency, and busy-ness.
In recent months, I’ve taken to jotting notes from time to time on the things I noticed when I “turned aside.” These notes are more than reminders of the small, joyful things I’ve seen: they are writing material. I think of them as snapshots. A snapshot captures a single moment in time, freezes it, puts a frame around it. But within that tiny frame, a whole universe speaks.
Here, for example, are three snapshots I took from a single very busy week.
At the end of the Whitby Hall, where my campus office is, stands a chair like one you might fine in the lobby of an office building, upholstered and spacious, with high arms. As I was unlocking my office one morning, I saw a woman standing in front of the chair, acting very oddly. She bent over so that her face was only a foot or so from the seat of the chair and shook her head so that her hair flopped from one side to the other. Then she stood up and laughed and said something I couldn’t make out in a silly, high-pitched voice. Then she bent down again and shook her head, then she stood up laughing again. A moment later, she reached down and lifted something from the seat of the chair, and the entire scene fell into place. A baby! The infant had been lying on the chair seat, no doubt laughing delightedly as the women entertained her. Suddenly, a bizarre and slightly alarming scene became a delight.
Also in Whitby Hall: A boy of eleven or so, wearing headphones, dances with utter abandon, his eyes closed, lost in music no one else can hear.
And from my second story window at night: On a branch sit three sparrows in a row, sound asleep, their heads tucked. From the outside, they would be well hidden by a tangle of vines. They have no way of knowing I am watching them sleep through my window.
Three snapshots: Glimpses of life I can weave into stories and poetry. They are all around us, these small things. You don’t have to look for them: If you are present in life, they will come. When they do, think of them not just as pleasant scenes to ease you through your day, but as a gift to you as a writer, a storyteller, a chronicler. The universe is abundant: It offers these gifts generously.