Good Things Come In Small Packages

Published in 2024, these teeny stories are, to those who lived through it, obviously pandemic-flavored. The small spheres of regular contact, simple pleasures--while Covid-19 raged through the world and killed mercilessly, there was also a return to the joy of taking a minute to say hello to people just to connect, to find true joy in a lizard skittering along, a bird's unique song, or just anything that would make the day a smidgen different than the day before. Dinnertime conversation would have as the star of the show things one might have found mundane or not worth our time, "before". It was a time of noticing. So, the very, very bad did come with some good. Well, these moments on author Thomas Greene's porch feel very much like that. His kind-hearted, humorous, and profound interactions and observations are lovely and evocative of the warmth of that era. They're not all light-hearted, but he leads you through artfully, and there is beauty in the telling.