Minutiae

Somebody once said that the Devil was in the details and as writers we're always looking for the little things that concrete the reality of our writing.  But how far can you go?  Where's the fine line between appropriate attention to detail and OCD?

I'm sitting in my usual coffee house, in my usual seat, by the window on the first floor, overlooking the market.  It feels like the first day of Autumn; the sky is a flat mist grey and the awnings of the market look subdued, like off-season deck chairs.  The people walking below have slumped shoulders, heavy bags, yawns splitting their faces wide open.

This all seems like appropriate attention, I'm not dwelling on a list of every bloom sold on the flower stall, or describing everything that the man sitting on the bench below is wearing...  Although I like the way he stares off into his thoughts as he struggles to zip up his jacket, a cigarette dangling between his fingers.

But the things that mesmerise me, that make me pause; the way the milk blossoms and billows through the tea when I first pour it in, like a fast growing coral, pale against a mineral brown sea...  The way one lone white feather flutters on the pavement in the breeze of everyone's footsteps...  The way that the woman on the phone behind me has perfect hair except for a couple of loose strands, standing out from her head in a half circle of gold that glints in the light...

I feel I teeter on the brink of over-description constantly, because of the tiny things that catch my eye - shiny, silver details clamouring for the magpie mind.  It would be so easy to fall into that cloud world of heat and motion in that grande Earl Grey, or to sit by the market and watch the passage of that feather as it attempts to touch the passers-by with its simple beauty.

The film of the plastic bag in "American Beauty" captivates me, I see the beauty in the disposable, the shape of the wind in that dancing plastic.

But do we get lost in those moments?  Does it take us away from ourselves for a brief respite, a reminder of the gloriousness of the overlooked, the minutiae of our lives?  Or do we lose connection with each other whilst we are absorbed in the details?

I don't know, but I love the way my tea blossoms and the dance of that feather and I wish there were more opportunity to write about these things without losing track of the bigger picture.