in pursuit of the small

by Anna Maria Hansen

It was tiny.

A mouse's paw-print in the snow. I almost missed it in pursuit of the big deer I was trying to photograph.

I followed the miniscule tracks through the snowy forest, moving slowly, eyes trained downward. Kneeling in the snow, feeling cold melt into the knees of my jeans, I looked for the imprint of a paw, the shallow scuff of a tail.

Imagining how the forest must look to this creature, whose scurrying prints had led me to its frost-dusted doorstep. Trying to think what it saw, what the cold felt like to it, where it was now, and why it had gone this way.

Later that day, I was perched on my chair, working away at my NaNo-novel-in-the-making. I saw a cluster of words that stood out, like a shallow footprint on my story.

It was tiny.

I kept reading, kept following the footprints through the words. They were subtle, almost invisible. So quietly they had come into my story I hadn't realized they were there. Now, I followed them. The more I followed the track, the deeper, the clearer, it became.

Until I stood on the doorstep of understanding. Of realizing how this tiny footprint was going to drive the entire story. How it had already left its tracks, and all I needed to do was sharpen them, deepen their impression on the surface of my story.

They were the most important part of the story.

They were tiny.

I almost missed them in pursuit of the "bigger story" I was trying to write. In pursuit of what I thought my story was about. Now I know to lean down, to look closer. To stop. Listen.

Search for the tiny tracks. They'll lead you to the doorstep of the story.