Life

Among humans there are no small acts; just as among plants there are no small leaves.

The quote is from the best of my recollection from reading Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables. I read the line the day before yesterday, as the author explained to me how seemingly insignificant tidbits in the news of 1817 were catalysts for larger movements among humanity. A change in fashion, an argument over the pronunciation of a word, a scandal among the elite… on the day you read it in the paper, it seems trivial. Forty years later, you may be able to see how it was an ingredient that constructed a great change.

It helped that he added the part about leaves, and that it is the end of April. The first leaves that came to my mind were the tiny twin leaves sprouting from delicate red stems of what will become fat and juicy beets with a veritable hedge of greenery above ground. There is no path to the beet without the first tiny leaves.

I delight in life.