in praise of ordinary, everyday kindness
A Mother’s Day letter and a story written from my heart. I hope it finds yours.
Dearest wild and wonderful readers,
I hope these first few weeks of May have been gentle. Thank you for your thoughtful comments and replies to my last letter — If rocks could speak. It means so much to know that you are enjoying this newsletter.
On days when I am weary and the words do not come, I think of you — and I remember why I keep writing. We are in this together.
Today, I want to share some thoughts on Mother’s Day and a story about ordinary, everyday kindnesses with you. The story was written a year ago, and wild and wonderful readers who have been here from the beginning may remember this tale. It is one of my favourites.
I hope you enjoy it too and that you find something here to warm your heart.
With love and friendship,
Kate xx
P.S Scroll to the bottom for a little snippet of wild — a moment of wonder at the top of a waterfall with my family on Mother’s Day.
Last Sunday was Mother’s Day in Australia and I wanted to write to you about mothers. I filled pages in my notebook, but nothing felt quite right.
How do you write about something we all share without sounding too familiar, too sentimental? How do you speak to both the light and the shadow?
How do you write all the mothers —
Good mother, bad mother, stay-at-home mother, career mother, earth mother, wild mother, run-away mother, spread-sheet mother, ghost mother, sad mother, wolf mother.
And how do we write for the motherless, the ageing mothers, the women who longed to be mothers but couldn’t, the mothers no longer here, for the ones who have ‘mothered’ others, for the places that have held us, cradled us in times of need?
What’s the word for someone who does things capitalism can’t monetise — who rises in the night to the murmur of a child, who gives and creates and conjures, remedies and supplies; who loves you so much it’s killing them softly?
Mother. Mumma. Mummy. Mum.
Listen to the word, feel it melt in your ear.
It begins with closed lips — all breath, all nose — then opens with a vowel and closes with a soft hum: mmmm.
It rhymes with bum, thumb, tum — parts of the body. It is a bodied word, after all — a mother nourishes life with her body, as she was once nourished by another’s.
When I think of mother, I think of a babushka doll — the kind that opens to reveal a smaller self, and another, and another. A daughter inside a mother, and inside her, another.
I think of women carrying women.
It always amazes me when I remember — a baby girl’s full supply of eggs develops while she is still inside her mother’s womb.
Imagine that — a little mother, inside a mother.
*
Mother’s Day is about celebrating the people who care for us and support us, the people who gave us life and light.
It acknowledges the small, invisible, tender things that make our world a better place; that make it easier to survive — kindness, friendship, a smile, a warm cuppa, a phone call, a letter.
And today, I want to share a story about ordinary, everyday kindnesses with you.
Let’s begin.
Small kindnesses at the corner shop
I’m baking a cake. Late at night, as mothers do, when the house is roughly asleep, and the oven light is warm and pleasing in the gathering dark.
The glow from the square double glass window is romantic, a little soporific — a candle burning low on a date night-in, the embers of a wood fire lulling a baby asleep on the breast.
Now I sound like I’m falling in love with my oven. Domestic goddess that I am. I can hear you laughing, you know I can.
Earlier that day I’d read through the recipe. It’s a classic carrot cake from Tasmanian baker, Sally Wise.1 A crowd favourite, moist and reliable, and it doesn’t contain bananas, my usual go to for a birthday celebration. No horrendous allergy stories here, just a younger brother who has an aversion to bananas — a phobia he developed as a kid and has carried with him all his life. Justified, perhaps, by his sailing fraternity because bananas are said to bring bad luck on a boat.2
Carrots, on the other hand, are symbols of health and love. And my fridge just so happens to be plentiful with the elongated root. Thanks to Sylvia, my three-year-old daughter, and her shopping habit — her small fingers slipping a few carrots into my African basket each time we visit the shop on the corner — sometimes twice a day.
Or five times, on a day like this, because the egg basket is empty and the other ingredients are waiting — the carrots blitzed in the food processor on the bench; the flour, sugar, and spices mixed in the stainless steel bowl; the oil and vanilla mingling in the glass jug.
My throat pinches with a rush of night-before-birthday nerves. Sylvia appears at the kitchen door, in her pink elephant pajamas, as if awoken by my frequency of concern. She runs out to the back garden and checks the chicken pen for eggs, but there are none.
I glance at the time on the stove, 7.59pm. I throw my eyes to the kitchen window, where I can see the shop on the corner, the door is open and the lights are on. I might make it before it closes at 8.
Go Mum, Sylvia shouts, her lips pulled into a wide smile, her eyes pressing into mine, Run.
And I do. Rushing into the hallway and out the front door. My red sheepskin boots pounding the footpath, the ties of my fading-black apron flying behind me, my breath catching in my cheeks.
But I am too late. The sliding door is closing as I reach it and through the glass I can see the owner, Niko, turning the lock. But he sees me, the whole frantic mess of me, standing at his door. His face softens into a smile. He pulls open the door.
Katie, what is it?, he says, in his familiar English-Greek lilt — a song I have learnt to love with my naive Australian ear.
I’ve run out of eggs and I’m cooking a birthday cake, I say. And his eyes become brighter, like they are filling with a sunrise. Come in, come in, he says.
Anytime, Katie, I am here 5am whatever you need, he adds, as I carry a dozen eggs to the counter.
*
And they have been here, for all of it.
Delivering the groceries I had ordered-over-the-phone to our front door when I was recovering from brain surgery. I would wait in the hallway leaning against the wall, counting the necessary coins from my fluorescent-yellow bumbag (yes I was stylish even in illness).
Years later carrying home a banana box of food for me as I held onto the collars of my three children, the fourth, blossoming in my belly. A kindness they have continued as my family has grown.
Joining the search for my missing son, that disastrous afternoon, when I collapsed in despair and all the while my son was asleep in his bed.3
*
It is a familiar story.
The milk bar, as the corner shop is affectionately called in Australia, popping up on our streets with the arrival of immigrant families in the 1930s. Selling the best-array of lollies and milk-shakes, yo-yos and magazines, and food from the owner’s far-away homes.
Many of you will have grown up near a family-run corner shop, spent your pocket money there, bought last minute ingredients for dinner and candles for a birthday cake, perhaps even worked in one, as I did when I was a teenager. A place where the everyday and the extraordinary converge — I remember that day I served Queen Mary of Denmark and King Frederik X at the local grocer.
What do you remember?
The thrill of being able to walk to the shop alone for the first time?4
But as Annabel Crabb writes, the corner shop is a vanishing species.
Under attack from supermarkets with their ever expanding product range and opening hours. […] And those born in the 21st century, might wonder what a corner shop even is.
*
Our shop on the corner is thriving.
And it’s not just luck, good management, or local support that has saved it from residential development. It’s a deep yearning for real-life connection and the things that we need, beyond convenience and nourishment.
Look carefully at your shopping list and you will see what your heart desires — conversation, belonging, trust — written in invisible ink.
*
Do you know how to share a bread stick the Greek way?, George asks me across the counter one afternoon. He holds the bread stick in his hands.
Slice it in half length ways, drizzle with olive oil mixed with a little water, stack with sliced tomato and feta cheese, and a grating of pepper. He kisses his fingers, Perfect.
Last week a woman came up to me and said, I like your dress, your outfit, the stripy yellow and green socks with the Birkenstock sandals, the bright swirls of colour on your sleeves.
And I’m remembering the lines of a poem, Small Kindnesses5, by Danusha Laméris —
We have so little of each other, now. So far from tribe and fire. Only these brief moments of exchange. What if they are the true dwelling of the holy, these fleeting temples we make together when we say, “Here, have my seat,” “Go ahead—you first,” “I like your hat.”
Inside the shop on the corner there is a space for you in this big wide world, a space where you can be someone.
And if you watch carefully, pay attention to the small details, you will find the very things you are looking for.
*
A few weeks ago Niko told me that his wife was unwell. I had suspected it — her absence, her eyes cast down, the whiteness of her cheeks. But I wasn’t prepared. Water welled in my eyes and something collapsed — my heart?
Niko rung the items on the register, weighed the nectarines and Lebanese cucumbers, placed it all inside my shopping basket. And I reached across the counter, placed my hand on his, gave it a gentle squeeze.
And in that gesture was everything.
Other things
I loved this essay on motherhood and this reflection on the history of Mother’s Day.
Brain tumour community friends — this episode of the Conversation podcast is great listening. Author Jamila Rizvi talks about her diagnosis with a rare brain tumour, her treatment, and her latest book: Broken Brains: For anyone who's been sick or loved someone who was.
For the poetry lovers — Palestinian poet Mosab Abu Toha has won the Pulitzer prize for his series of New Yorker essays on suffering of Palestinians in Gaza.
Wowed by The Piano on ABC iview. Moving and inspiring watching for the whole family.
Did you know there is a underground sea on Mars and a mountain range buried under ice in Antarctica.
I am in the midst of a very busy week. In a letter to her subscribers, poet
wrote that her email inbox was ‘on fire’. Right now I feel like I’m on fire. Perhaps you feel this too — everyone and everything wanting more and more, while the world suffers from violence, environmental destruction, and a unrelenting stream of information.I’m running a marathon in August. My husband said, I guess you have reached that age. The next day I thought, ‘that age’ is a returning to the wild girl I once was, before love, illness, motherhood, and everything in-between. A big hug to my dear friend and W&W reader Kate, who will be training with me in the deep, dark winter mornings in lutruwita / Tasmania.
I’m flying to Canberra tomorrow to celebrate the big 40 with two dear friends. Then it’s on to Sydney for a few days to soak up the Sydney Writers Festival. I can’t wait.
What are you up to? I’d love to hear your news.
Wishing you light and love,
Kate xx
PS. I want to say a very special thank you to my mother. Her love is fierce and enduring, and without her, I would not be the strong, wild, and tender woman that I am today. I love you with all my heart, Mum.
Sally Wise OAM is a kitchen guru, author and presenter. Best known for her slot on ABC local radio in Hobart about preserves and jams. And of course her wonderful books, including A Year in a Bottle.
There are a few plausible reasons for this superstition — years ago many ill-fated ships were noted to have been carrying bananas; bananas release ethylene and cause other fruits and vegetables to ripen quickly; sometimes dangerous and unwanted animals and insects were found in banana cases on board.
Annabel Crab, From lollies and baked beans to internet cafes and selfie sticks — the long history of the Australian corner shop, ABC News, 7 March 2023
This bit is just wonderful…”Listen to the word, feel it melt in your ear.
It begins with closed lips — all breath, all nose — then opens with a vowel and closes with a soft hum: mmmm.
It rhymes with bum, thumb, tum — parts of the body. It is a bodied word, after all — a mother nourishes life with her body, as she was once nourished by another’s.” Thanks also for sharing the link of mine. Xo
That was a whole lot of wisdom, experience and just plain great storytelling packed into your Mother’s Day reminiscing. My wife’s family operated a corner store while she was growing up. In the US the term for them is “mom-and-pops.” There was a great mom-and-pop hobby shop near the bowling alley where I bought most of my seventy-odd model ships. All these shops are gone now, in the name of “progress.” I hope your mom is well, and offer prayers for the shop owner’s wife. Can’t wait to try that breadstick recipe!