The art of noticing: Little things make way for big revelations as our lives unfurl

Kansas Reflector opinion editor Clay Wirestone appears at a March 11, 2025, town hall in Emporia. (Photo by Jessica Tufts for Kansas Reflector)

When I speak to classes of young journalists about writing columns, the question that often comes to the forefront is simple: How do you find material?

The answer is also simple: Material can be found anywhere and everywhere you look. The trick comes from actually noticing. Topics overflow in real life and virtual life. Grist for the mill accumulates in my household, hometown and beloved state. Anything you experience, be it putting on a shirt or driving to the grocery store, can inspire creative thought.

Writers focus on one of those subjects, thinking and scribbling about it until a chunk of text emerges that can stand on its own, separate from the great warp and woof of reality. They’re done it. That shirt or drive — or confounding comment from Senate President Ty Masterson — has triggered a bank of flashing lights in the pinball game of reality.

High school and college students don’t really want to hear that answer, of course. It sounds too much like work. They want to hear about conversations between me and my editor or about calls that I have with mysterious, off-the-record sources.

I’m not saying that such conversations don’t happen, but they don’t lead to the majority of my pieces.

No, I believe that almost any topic — no matter how big or how small — can inspire writing. We all live unfathomably rich lives of incident and emotion. Looking at even the tiniest piece of one of those lives can unravel giant thoughts and profound conclusions.

Author James Woods describes part of the transformation: “Literature differs from life in that life is amorphously full of detail, and rarely directs us toward it, whereas literature teaches us to notice — to notice the way my mother, say, often wipes her lips before kissing me; the drilling sound of a London cab when its diesel engine is flabbily idling; the way old leather jackets have white lines in them like the striations of fat in pieces of meat; the way fresh snow “creaks” underfoot; the way a baby’s arms are so fat that they seem tied with string.”

That’s how I’ve been using this space over the past couple of weeks. My “little things” series has dealt with such profound matters as tipping, old kitchen pans, and taking naps. Not every one of the columns has attracted a giant audience (fewer people want to read about buttons than I imagined), but readers have reacted positively overall.

When you live in Earth-shattering times, when the news every day threatens to throw you off your axis, a few simple words about simple things can serve as a bit of light and hope.

I’ve always written about a wider variety of subjects than you might expect. Social media doesn’t amplify my columns about plastic bag bans or turning into crabs.

So that’s why I’ve closed out 2025 doing something entirely different. None of the columns extend far beyond 600 words, and I resisted drawing profound social or political lessons. I wanted to genuinely write about the small, the forgotten, the quotidian.

I don’t mean to shift to this mode permanently. The Kansas Legislature’s 2026 session beckons, and we all know I’ll have a lot to say about that. I’m far from writing my last pieces about Masterson or House Speaker Dan Hawkins.

What I really wanted to do in these closing weeks of December was emphasize the value and worth of the little things around us. We don’t only create drama and incident. We are all of us part of the tapestry of time and family and memory, an enormous unfolding that began before us and will continue long after.

We are, all of us, the sum of innumerable little things, and we should notice and celebrate them. Who knows? You might end up with a handful of columns.

Clay Wirestone is Kansas Reflector opinion editor. Through its opinion section, Kansas Reflector works to amplify the voices of people who are affected by public policies or excluded from public debate. Find information, including how to submit your own commentary, here.