In February of this year, the movie The Map of Tiny Perfect Things was released on Amazon Prime.

I mentioned it in my January & February favorites and I have watched it a handful of times since.

While the concept is similar to that of Groundhog Day, it takes special care to highlight the small, special moments that happen each day but often go unnoticed.

After watching the movie, I started to look for the tiny perfect moments happening around me, whether they involved me or not, and I wrote them down. Now they stick out in my memory, reminding me of those little bursts of happy rather than letting them fade into the background. And I think it’s a habit I’m going to continue.

To give you an idea of what I mean, here are some of the tiny, perfect moments I found in 2021 and here’s to many more in 2022!

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1) Sitting at a red light, I saw a man standing on the corner waiting for the go ahead to cross the street. He was wearing headphones and bobbing his head to whatever he was listening to, not a care in the world. When his light turned green, he popped his hip to the left, on what I assume was a specific beat in the song, and then he started walking, continuing to bob his head and enjoy the music.

2) While on a run in my neighborhood, I saw a girl walking up ahead of me. We were on opposite sides of the street, but we were both heading in the same direction. As I moved out and around a parked car, grateful that my final turn towards home was approaching, she slowed to a stop next to a tree that had long drooping branches with yellow flowers on the ends. She took one flower gently in her hand and lifted her nose to smell it. Then she kept moving and the branch slowly bounced behind her, casting a shadow that looked like a waving arm onto the asphalt.

3) As I hurriedly got off the freeway in an attempt to get to a store before it closed, I drove past a park that has hugely tall trees. One of which has a long, thick branch that reaches across the grass, leaving a path of shade. It was a summer afternoon and the temperatures were barely out of the triple digits, but a woman had set up a folding chair in that lane of shade. Her legs were crossed, hair up in a bun, and she was reclining comfortably, reading. She looked as content as could be.

4) One morning, just after eight o’clock, I was en route to pick up an order for work. The freeways were congested, as always, so I was cutting down side streets, hoping to catch as many green lights as I could. At one red light, as I broke off a piece of my apple cinnamon breakfast bar, I saw a man walk out onto his balcony with a cup of coffee. The morning air was a little crisp, so I was wearing a jacket, but he was in a t-shirt and sweats. He put one hand on the banister and used the other to lift his coffee cup to his lips. He took a long sip and then just looked out at the day, thinking peacefully.

5) The apartment I live in has underground parking and a slow moving gate that you have to open with a remote. More often than not, as the gate opens, someone walks or runs by, usually with a dog in tow, so I always drive out in a slow roll, looking both ways multiple times. One morning, as I sat back waiting for the gate to peel open, a man walked by, a leash in one hand, his phone in the other. A small, happy dog, padded in front of him. He glanced over at me and then slowed almost to a stop once he’d cleared the gate. Looking down at his phone, his eyes concentrated, reading, and then a smile spread across his face like it was being unzipped. He closed his eyes, excited, and then put the phone in his pocket and kept walking.

6) One Saturday morning in October my best friend and I decided to get up and drive to Santa Barbara to have brunch and shop around. It was the perfect day and we were walking up and down State St. when we heard someone singing. We looked across the street and a girl was standing, all on her own, singing opera to a gathering crowd of people. She had a beautiful voice and we were taken aback by her courage to stand out there alone and sing. We stopped to watch for a little while, and then when we turned to leave, we saw a man walk out of a store in front of us. We saw him notice her. He turned toward her voice and then just stopped, right there in the middle of the sidewalk, completely in awe, and listened.

7) At gas station downtown, I leaned against my car, waiting for my tank to fill up. Two cars sat on the opposite side of the divider as me, both belonging to men who were pushing buttons on their respective machines. After a minute or two, they started talking. There had clearly been some kind of altercation that I’d missed, but in my book, I’d showed up just in time. Their conversation went like this:

“Hey, I’m sorry about before. I’m just going through some stuff, but that’s not your fault.”

“Don’t worry about it, we all have our moments.”

“Yeah, but I’m still very sorry.”

“Don’t give it another thought, truly.”

“Thank you.”

Keep your eye out for those tiny, perfect moments. They are everywhere! And they will only make your days brighter 🙂

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Check out more List-cember posts here.