Small Things

By Jessica McElligott
200,000 people used to live in ancient Ephesus, where I stood, sweating to death. (Using my stellar math brain I think this is close to 100 times the student body at Messiah. I think…)

The main road in Ephesus, leading from the government area to the Library and Agora.

And here it is the small things that give me a sense of wonder. Small things like the gillions (to use the technical term) of tourists who lined the streets with their many cameras and multicolored umbrellas to protect them from the sun’s harsh rays. Gillions of little faces and names that history will forget, as it has done before with Ephesus and other ancient cites our group has seen.

Sure there are a few men you have probably heard of: Aristotle, Paul, John, Pythagoras, Homer. But the average person only left their clay pots and whatnot behind. And let me tell you, I am no saint or philosopher or author or man. Nobody will remember me in 200 years let alone 2,000 or more. I understand that human beings were and are forgotten, and this evokes feelings of insignificance.  Can anyone say "existential crisis?"

A partially buried Theater, and the remains of several buildings are covered in grass and poppies.

Small reminders of the civilization and city that was once vibrant and thriving.

These feelings are augmented by small things in Turkey like rose flavored sunsets, crystal clear seas (clear even at the depth of twenty or so feet) and mountains no one can scale. It makes me feel cookie-cutter-esk to know Turkey contains around 78 million other people. I’m a blink of an eye compared to the oldest temple, found in the South East, a temple that boasts more years than Stonehenge. (It was built in 9600 BCE in case you wanted to know exactly how old we are talking.) Even the drivers understand my relative unimportance, careening past me as I hurry across the street.

At the Mediterranean Sea, you can see the clear turquoise waters behind us.

Ironically, the smallest things, thoughts, are the cause and only solution to this crisis inside me. After all, life is often just made up of how we think of it, in my opinion. So as I remember glorious sunsets, vast seas, breathtaking mountains; when I know I am one in 78 million, a young being, and expendable, it makes it all the better when my hotel mate says, “I am so glad to room with you.” Like I said, it’s the small things.

Small things, specifically Jess and Michelle, examining smaller things (grains of salt) in the Salt Lake.