Stories That Take Their Time

In a world that moves fast, I’m drawn to stories that take their time—quiet, ordinary lives that remind us what really matters. This week, I’m sharing a few that have stayed with me.

Photo by Toomas Tartes on Unsplash

Lately, I’ve been craving stories that include a lot of space.

I have been searching out stories of people in person or online share their why. Why they left their job, why they started writing, why they bought a cabin, why they started walking every morning. These stories aren’t polished. They’re raw, emotional, and often slow. By that, I mean they are deep and present and unafraid to include self-examination.

Another way I’m observing this is by watching hiking videos with my wife. Not the adrenaline-packed kind, but the quiet ones in which someone walks through foggy woods, narrating their thoughts, or simply letting the silence speak.

A guy I’m following online is sharing his weight loss journey, and it’s beautiful. A friend of mine recently packed up and moved over nine hundred miles away to the part of the country his wife is from, and I’m loving his videos and photos that show me aspects of his new life.

And I keep returning to small-town stories, both fictional and nonfictional. Tales of people who know the name of the post office clerk, who wave at passing cars, who live lives that don’t make headlines but matter deeply.

I’m currently reading Gone to Green by Judy Christie – a novel about a big-city journalist who moves to the South to take over a small-town newspaper for a friend who dies. While she’s there, she encounters all forms of humanity, including corruption, but also, friendships among unlikely people. Stories like this remind me why I write my own small-town stories (if you’re interested, check out Return to Cricket Springs – a novel I set in a small, fictional town in Nebraska).

A baseball executive I once interviewed about a team’s general manager told me the GM knew the name of every employee, from parking attendants to ticket takers. Not only that, but he knew the names of their family members, and he took time to ask about them. That’s a story worth telling … and hearing.

I’m drawn to all these stories because in them, people – as flawed and sinful as we are – find room for one another. And we all need that.

What types of stories are you drawn to lately? What might they be telling you about what you need, or who you’re becoming?