Ink Aria

Small-Moment Stories

Renee Gehman

My sneakers smacked the pavement loudly on a steep decline in the road, but even louder was the sound of the large truck coming slowly to a stop alongside me. Feigning obliviousness, I stared ahead, readying cell phone in my hand for any emergency phone-calling that might become necessary. Thank goodness, I thought, I had remembered to put on my “Road ID” bracelet that identifies my name, address, and emergency contact information.

“Excuse me!” a friendly voice from the truck called down, and I relinquished the oblivion to stop and acknowledge the man in the truck. He was the picture of harmlessness.

“Ending Creek Road?” he asked. “Did I pass it, do you know?” Smiling, he reached out the window to show me a notepad that clearly said, “Ending Creek Rd.”

I studied the words for a couple seconds, then, “Oh! INDIAN Creek Road!” I called up to him, laying hard on the first syllable. “Yes, it was just back there on the right!”

He thanked me and we proceeded on in our opposite directions on our own right paths. Had he been in a hurry when he first wrote down that road name, neglecting at that time to clarify the spelling? Did I recognize the lost-in-translationism so quickly because of being an English as a second language teacher attuned to the intricacies of language production? (Oh, don’t flatter yourself; any local could have figured it out!) Ironic though, to have had to emphasize INDIAN as the correct word here, amid the ongoing quest in schools and beyond to blot out this misnomer for Native Americans in all its many occurrences.

Turning into my driveway some time later, I remembered the reason I’d even gone for a run outside that day: that morning a man had shared in church on the topic of an oil container he’d seen while driving. He’d stopped and pulled over, wanting to do his part to ameliorate litter, except what he found turned out to be a brand new $3.50 bottle of Pennzoil. 

A small, odd-to-tell-in-church story, but I’d been intrigued by his message of paying attention to, appreciating, finding meaning in the details of one small moment. Tony Campolo once referred in a sermon to the top three regrets in a survey of senior citizens, and the third, after wishing to risked more and to have left more of a legacy, was to have reflected more.

In first grade students write what we call “small moment stories,” with the goal of expressing details about a narrow topic. This is a strategic remedy for the “I’m Finished” virus that many first-grade children are stricken with once they’ve written one sentence. The first symptom to look for is a prematurely raised hand, which you must address immediately, because once other children have been exposed to one such hand, suddenly hands will start popping up all over the room. Many pencils stop moving at this point, and if it gets too bad you may need to suggest that some of the afflicted will need to stay in for recess if they don’t show signs of improvement, and I mean soon, class!

But hopefully it will not come to this, because you will go to the first child, read that one sentence, and say, “Well, the good news is you are not really finished. There are lines to fill, minutes to spare, and details of your story to add!”

In this way, stories of playing in the creek (Indian Creek, maybe, but certainly not Ending Creek) are spared from ending at “I love to go in the creek because it is fun,” but are brought to life in a recounting of the time you and buddy Ryan found a piece of an old pot that you excitedly cleaned up and took in to show Grandma, who expressed equal excitement (“Wow! That is so cool!”) and saved it in on a shelf so that if (WHEN) you find more pieces of that pot, you can put them together.

The small-moment story is not as easy a concept for some to grasp as it is for others. Jennifer, for example, will not write if she does not know how to spell the word. (The practice is to encourage students to “stretch the word out” and not always just spell it out for them). Prem, on the other hand, is determined to write as many stories as possible, and he does write well, but such a large part of making a small moment great is spending enough time in a small moment to realize its meaning.

I have a checklist in my Bible, on which I mark off chapters as I read them, and I like to see the accumulation of marks grow on the page. But then from time to time I read another book and come across some commentary on a verse I had read and find that, due to a lost-in-translationism from Hebrew to English, I did not fully realize the meaning of what I had read. Such a thing can be disheartening in a world where we are trying to finish as much as possible, read as many verses as possible, get to Ending Creek Road as quickly as possible.

But what is the point of reaching such a destination if we fail to stop along the way to pick up the oil can, study a verse in depth, check directions, or write one detailed story about one small moment? That we can take our small moments and make them grow, simply by choosing to live them more fully or reflect on them more deeply seems almost magical to me, because you are taking something that already happened and adding value to it rather than letting it slip away into prematurely finished oblivion.
Hands down, please, pencils moving.

—Renee Gehman, Souderton, Pennsylvania, is assistant editor, DreamSeeker Magazine; and ESL teacher.