I was thinking about details. Details can be superfluous, annoying or painful distractions that divert us from the bigger picture or more profound thoughts…the thick scudding clouds, a scratchy throat, a list of grocery staples, a basket of unpaid bills, a canker sore.

Details can separate the honorable contract from the scam, the working marriage from the flawed relationship, the landscaped yard from the rot beneath.

But details can also be tiny fragments of beauty and peace that transform an ordinary day- a heron sighting, an email from an old friend, one remaining piece of Godiva chocolate in the dish, a stolen moment to finish a chapter. Details give individuality and life, rather than sameness and death. We live in details. We write in details.

Every man’s life ends the same way. It is only the details of how he lived and how he died that distinguish one man from another. – Ernest Hemingway

The devil is in the details. – German Proverb or Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

God is in the details. – Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

The true secret of happiness lies in taking a genuine interest in all the details of daily life.- William Morris

In photography, the smallest thing can be a great subject. The little, human detail can become a Leitmotiv.- henri Cartier-Bresson

Our life is frittered away by detail…simplify, simplify.

Caress the detail, the divine detail. -Vladimir Nabokov

Categories: observations