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LITTLE AND BIG: A STORY ABOUT A TOWN
THINKSTOCK.COM
Cannon Beach
A beloved author’s
2003 column about
Cannon Beach
By URSULA K. LE GUIN
O
nce upon a time there was a
little town by a big ocean. It
was a wise little town. Long
ago it had looked at its dunes and
beaches, its big trees,
its marsh where the
redwing blackbirds
sang, in little streets
and little grey shin-
gle shops and houses,
and said: This is all
good. My people like
me, my visitors like
Ursula K.
Le Guin
me, and I like me.
This is what I am and
what I want to be.
Busy people kept coming to the
little town and scolding it. You are
foolish, they said. You don’t under-
stand progress. You don’t even have
neon! There are no corporations
GEORGE VETTER PHOTO
Cannon Beach’s 2003 town photo
here! We will bring you golden
arches and make you rich!
No, thank you, said the wise little
town. My people own my shops.
People come to me because they like
those shops, and because at night
my streets glimmer very softly in the
dark.
But busy people kept coming
to the town and scolding it. Look
at you! they said. All these little
funky shingle homes! You should be
ashamed. You need immense houses.
What for? asked the town.
For rich people, said the busy
people. People like us. We cannot
live in funky cottages with gardens.
Let us tear these down and build
many immense houses, surrounded
by immense rocks, and then every-
one will see you are a town of rich
people and admire you immensely.
I see, said the little town, and it
thought about this. It thought long
and hard. It had no objection to rich
people. Rich people had done it a lot
of good over the years. But then, so
had not-rich people.
My people, thought the little
town, whether they are artists or
cleaning maids in motels, whether
they work or are retired, whether
they live here or come here when-
ever they can, all have a big love
for me, a big love for the little grey
houses, the quiet streets, the great
beach, the marsh where the black-
birds sing. My houses are little,
but my people are big. I wonder if
making the houses bigger might
make the people smaller? And how
will immense houses fit my little,
quiet streets? Do I want to be rich,
or do I want to be what I am? Do I
want to be admired, or do I want to
be loved?
The sea of course paid no atten-
tion to such foolish questions, and
the blackbirds had nothing useful
to say. All the little town could do
was ask itself, and hope that it was
wise enough to find the answer to its
questions. It was not a little ques-
tion, and the answer would not be a
small one, either.
Author Ursula K. Le Guin, a part-time
resident of Cannon Beach, died Jan.
22. “Little and Big” was originally
printed in the Cannon Beach Citizen in
2003. It is reprinted with the permis-
sion of her husband, Charles Leguin.