tiny beautiful things: big, magnificent things
What prompted me to read this book was a @reesesbookclub instagram reel — a screenplay from tiny beautiful things, as a TV show, on Hulu. https://www.instagram.com/p/C35hW-PR_Gc/
Right before my junior year of college, I married a good man whom both I loved, and should not have married. Because the day I married him, there was a small, clear voice inside me that said, “Go.” That said, go, even though you love him. Go, even though he is kind and faithful and good to you. Go, even though there is nowhere to go, go. Even though you don’t know exactly why you can’t stay. And once I heard that voice, I couldn’t unhear it. So instead, I tried not to listen. But women, you have to listen. There are so many reasons we should stay, but there is really only one reason you should go. Go. Because you want to. Go, because wanting to leave is enough.
When I first saw this scene, mixed feelings erupted. I immediately disagreed. I think that justing wanting to go, merely wanting to, without a reason, as lukewarm as it is of a feeling, is not sound, not logical, not valid by itself. It’s the feeling of wanting to explore, just because, and not wanting to be tethered, in the principle of freedom — some principles clash inherently. I thought about the colours of emotions that average out to be my mood, some of them murky and unreliable, like how the climate is an aggregate of fleeting weather patterns. My thermostat fluctuates with a fairly high standard deviation, although very much internally at a stasis when it comes to my self-esteem, I sometimes do feel like any sort of commitment, if not perfect, can feel like it’s smothering, or clipping my wings, lest me sacrifice my ability to soar. But that’s every quid-pro-quo commitment. I think in this case, lots of personal cluttered feelings taint how I see this specific scene. Then, I thought for a second, and slammed on the brakes in my adamancy to disagree with the narrator. Because a gut feeling and intuition is all that drives your choice to stay. Or leave. And compatibility isn’t something that can be tallied up through a pro/con template, with points adding or subtracting from each other, where you can go through people like cards in Blackjack, to hit or stand to beat the dealer, and get it closest to maxing out at compatibility, and reaching a stage of being ok enough with your hand (your commitment) and not taking the risk of busting (losing it all). It’s a feeling.
To be honest, to this day, I still don’t know if a feeling it’s enough. I think I need to be more weathered by life experience to know. This is one of the things that I must admit, I know that I don’t yet know. The younger and more simplistic version of me would always have trusted her gut feeling, and brushed off the crumbs, gingerly stood up and left. And I still will. Because these are incredibly hefty decisions, and if my heart whispers, even if there is no corroborable X, Y or Z premise, nor an a + b = c conclusion, I will not wait for that whisper to become a scream. But at the same time, my heart’s seen things I wish it didn’t, and sometimes I wish I could be kinda reckless while I can, but I feel older than I am (lennon stella reference).
This book, tiny little things, is about many many big, magnificent things. To distill it down to the uncertainties of commitment is an understatement, because the topics of the advice columns extend across so much that we encounter in life — love, rage, loss, and resilience — that many souls have gone through. Each anonymous person writes to Sugar about their situation — infidelity on both the receiving and perpetrating end, victims of abuse, early, late, ongoing, people feeling stuck or jealous with their hands tied behind their backs, people wanting to end relationships, friendships, and unsure if they can do so, people unsure if they can set boundaries, forgive themselves, or see that they are worthy of love. People giving us their deepest and darkest secrets and sharing their traumas in the open. Not unlike the trauma dump candy bowl challenges on TikTok, but obviously more vulnerable and less performative (as all columns are anonymous, and Sugar giving the advice was also anonymous at the time, allowing a bit more authenticity to percolate through the words).
And to each of them, Sugar writes back in a stern but comforting way. Stern, because she doesn’t always write what the advice solicitor would like to hear. It’s not all sugar to help the medicine go down. The medicine itself sometimes is icky, bitter, and washes up, to take a second gulp to go down. Even as an onlooker not emotionally invested in some situations, I think reading some words are prickly and tough. But it’s tough love that we must receive. Advice! Not an echo chamber.
Advice for people in their twenties
And beyond this, on the little pages, there are stories that strike such a chord in me because they are so moving. They are so sad and so raw but also so full of life.
It felt particularly acute to sit on that bench [overlooking the city at the top of a hike] absorbing what had just transpired [being disowned by her father after so much honest, sincere, generous, and forgiving effort on my behalf as a daughter].
I had that feeling you get — there is no word for this feeling — when you are simultaneously happy and sad and angry and grateful and accepting and appalled and every other possible emotion, all smashed together and amplified. Why is there no word for this feeling?
Perhaps because the word is “healing” and we don’t want to believe that. We want to believe healing is purer and more perfect, like a baby on its birthday. Like we’re holding it in our hands. Like we’ll be better people than we’ve been before. Like we have to be.
Some of my favourites are:
We are Here to Build the House, The Ordinary Miraculous, The Angry Boys, Beauty and the Beast, The Future has an Ancient Heart, There’s a Bundle on Your Head, The Truth that Lives Here, The Ghost Ship that Didn’t Carry Us, The Obliterated Place, Write Like a Motherfucker.
