Tiny Room Recollections
“While it may seem small, the ripple effect of small things is extraordinary.”
A tiny room. Photo courtesy of Mike Petrucci.
Recently my best friend took me back down memory lane to the tiny bedroom that I slept in for eighteen years. Like the quote from Nelson DeMille, “It was so small I had to leave the room to change my mind.” This flashback took me back to my small town, where most of my friends had tiny rooms just like mine, in which they also grew into adulthood. Small towns then were known for their small spaces except for the wide-open fields and deep woods surrounding this community. We never once thought about the unique small dimensions of the rooms where we spent our formative years.
We loved moving in and out of each other's small spaces, sometimes for hours and now and then overnight. It seemed like there were no families with only one or two children. My town produced big families who learned to share everything, no matter the size of the space or provisions. Back in the day, our joy was hardly ever measured by the size of anything except maybe the family car - the bigger and shinier the vehicle, the bigger the boasting rights. During that time, the car was king, whether in Detroit or small-town USA. You had to "make do," as my grandmother always used to say with everything else. Many seem to have forgotten what the term “make do” really means nowadays. So many want far bigger and far more of everything, regardless of their means to afford it. That, of course, leads to more considerable debt and self-inflicted headaches.
Despite our small quarters in those good old days, we took every opportunity to gather in any rooms that would hold us. Music, laughter, and friends filled every inch of the tiny 10 square foot space for the best parts of our lives. My uncle built what I would describe as the smallest "Juke Joint" ever built right in his basement, complete with a full bar, dance floor, and spaces to eat and drink. This joint was "The Spot" on the weekends and sometimes during the week.
Being the only girl in our family, my space in our home was the coveted one; my brothers shared a room, and of course, there was my parents' room. However, it seems as if I was always sharing my space with cousins, other relatives, or friends who came for a week and ended up being there for months. I have recollections of a couple of drop-ins who maintained residence in our humble abode for decades.
As my friends, siblings, family, and I grew through the years, we worked hard to have more than those meager things with which we grew up. We now wanted the biggest and best of everything, thinking this meant better. But life is a continuous circle – what goes around comes around again. It is fascinating that the new fashionable lifestyle for many has returned to 'Tiny House' living. This idea is still so 'new' that it is only legal in half the states of the United States. Tiny homes in some states are considered a fad, a safety hazard (for lack of enough exit doors or legally designated utility connections), or, at worst, a nuisance. Wow! And to think that in small towns all over America, a tiny house was closer to what we considered the norm over many generations.
No matter how small any space in which we may have landed along our life's journeys, not one was ever too small to keep us from dreaming big or thinking beyond any circumstances that many may have assumed would have hindered us.
As I read my favorite First Lady’s book “Becoming.” It, too, reminded me that our humble beginnings do not measure greatness. Even Michelle Obama grew into greatness from a tiny room that she had to share with her brother in a small house owned by her aunt and uncle. There is something about sharing that builds patience, a sense of order, and even character over time.
So, we must understand the value of small things, whether our tiny rooms, small statures, or even our tiny towns.
“It takes a small town to keep you humble.”
