From the Mountains: A Note on Noticing Tiny Wild Things

I’m in western North Carolina this week for a writing conference, which focuses on bringing a sense of place into our writing. And as I’ve been meditating on this topic, I’ve been struck by how all-encompassing place is and has been in my life—from the small towns and Pennsylvania Wilds that I grew up in to the Blue Ridge Mountains, where I am passing through.

Yesterday, while attempting to trail run (after taking a two year hiatus, it’s coming back slowly!) in the Tennent Mountain area, I was struck with the expansive views, trails that snake for miles along the green ridges, the layers of mountains in the distance… but even more, the tiny wild things I encountered along the way: flame azalea pushing all of its energy into the last too-red-to-be-orange blooms of the season while earlier petals pile on the ground, the luscious bulb of pink lady slippers tear-dropping to the ground, the swoop of a rose-breasted gosbeak, clusters of flowering bluets bursting from flat rock faces. And there’s something about these tiny wild things that make me stop and pause. (I promise it wasn’t only because I was out of breath, lol)

There’s something about the juxtaposition—we’ve been talking a lot about juxtaposition and contrast at this conference —the way these tiny wild things quietly survive and thrive. Maybe it’s the intimacy of noticing something so small and alive, tucked into the edges of things. But mostly, I think it’s because they invite a kind of attention that’s slower, softer, more rooted. The kind of attention I forget to give much of the time.

This week, we’ve also been talking a lot about how “place” shapes writing — how it shows up not just in setting, but in texture, memory, metaphor, dialogue. And it’s true. But hiking along that trail, dashing up hills and dodging rocks, I kept thinking about how place doesn’t just shape us — it shapes our ways of seeing. And maybe, before any of us write a word, we should really being training ourselves to pay better attention.

And attention, these days, can feel unattainable at times.

There’s so much noise in the world right now. So much urgency, fear. It’s easy to feel like noticing a flower blooming out of a crack in the rock is frivolous —But I believe the opposite is true.

Noticing isn’t a retreat. It’s a form of presence.

And maybe even a kind of resistance — a refusal to let beauty go unseen, to let being alive slip past us in the rush.

Because what I’ve realized is this:
I don’t create well when I’m rushing.
I don’t partner or parent well when I’m rushing.
I don’t show up for myself well when I’m rushing.

What brings me back—what opens something deeper—is attention.
Noticing what’s blooming beneath the surface. What’s tugging at me for no clear reason. What’s quietly shimmering at the edge of my awareness.

It’s never loud. It never arrives with a plan.
But when I slow down enough to actually pay attention — to a flower, to a flicker of curiosity, to a half-formed sentence — something shifts.

I feel more alive.
And that, more than anything, is where creativity begins.

---

A Small Invitation
This week, take a walk and notice the tiny wild things around you.
Let them interrupt you. Let them stop you mid-scroll, mid-rush, mid-thought.
Write them down if you want. Sketch them. Or just thank them.
The noticing is enough.