Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

At my writing group last night we decided to only meet once a month this year.  I had a pang.  I didn't want to let go of the bimonthly schedule, but I could see I was alone in my preference.  Change.  Always surprising, and usually invigorating.  We did a writing exercise where I placed three objects on the table and we could pick one and write about it for eight minutes.  They were all my objects, yet they had lost their particularity a long time ago.  I wrote about tiny glass salt and pepper shakers and in doing so remembered where I'd gotten them and with whom.  Several other people wrote about a tiny enamel viking ship with a minute spoon and shovel for the salt.  I'd always thought it was a gondola, but I've only had it two years.  It was my brother's and I brought it back with me.  It turned out to be Scandanavian, and if you slip out the glass dish inside there is an intricate carving of a church.  In gold, no less.  I'd never noticed it before.  The lesson:  look carefully and you find tiny wonders all around.  And writing:  it's all about the tiny wonders, not the big, sweeping ideas.