Tiny Things

Once, when I was in elementary school, I cut down a tiny pine in the back yard; with my father's help, nailed a wooden cross-bar to the trunk end; and set the tree up in my room for Christmas. Somewhere, my mother and I found tiny, thin-glass balls, which, with one small strand of white lights, decorated my tree.

Since then, I haven't been a big fan of tiny.

Until I started carrying a camera with me everywhere I go.

Now, the tinier the better.

Yesterday, as I headed over the dam at Lake Cheston on my way to the car, I saw something zip by, land, take off, and I decided to investigate. Mating flies! (I don't know what kind. My entomologist friend said I could call them "big-headed dipterans," a moniker I love.) They flitted from bald spot of dirt (think the size of a quarter) to grass blade to dried out weed, with me in hot pursuit. Now that I have one good eye thanks to cataract surgery and one good camera lens, I actually saw these tiny bugs and snapped them in macro.

Today, on a walk with a friend in an otherwise brown forest, I glimpsed a lovely little clump (think a small hand's worth) of moss dotted with little bits of red. Through my new lenses (anatomical and photographic), I saw furry stumps of gray-green growing upward and out, each terminating in a scarlet dot (or white with an even tinier dot of red waiting to burst forth). Who knew moss blossomed?

Now I know, and I know to keep my eyes peeled for the smallest things, because -- like packages -- they promise the best surprises.