My grandmother's hand-knitted brown bed socks are infamous in my family. Each of my father's generation inherited a pair of the slightly malformed, off-coloured feet warmers, and probably jumpers and beanies to match.
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Though not considered trendy at the time - maybe retro now - they kept Gran's family warm without having to buy clothes.
My parents ate their childhood garden. Their meat and three veg dinner was carrots and peas grown just metres from their back door. Their fingernails were black with loam from the effort.
My family goes to Gran for sewing needs - things repaired, or even made anew - and she always delivers. Countless buttons resewn, giving jeans, shirts, dresses and skirts a second - or fourth - life.
Whenever we arrive to deliver our clothes, Gran will have ANZAC biscuits cooling on the counter waiting for us - a recipe inherited from generations who had to make-do with whatever food was available and would last.
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At the time it seemed tight-arsed, cheap. But looking back, the word resilient comes to mind about my Gran.
Google Ngram records the frequency of a word in a corpus of books from as far back as the 1500s to 2019. It calculates how popular a word is as a percentage of the total words published.
An Ngram search for 'resilience' shows the word has grown in popularity almost 500 per cent since the year 2000. With COVID, bushfires, floods and foreign wars, we undoubtedly need more resilience - in ourselves, that is, not in our books.
Yet as I watch the cost of my weekly groceries skyrocket, and the price of petrol soar seemingly-uncontrollably, I cannot help but think maybe my Gran could teach our resilient-reading generation a thing or two about resilience.
This week I witnessed a food pantry planting out a community garden to ensure they have fresh produce to give to those most in need. I saw baskets full of mandarins at a friends house - abundantly free to take your fill. I had my torn pants repaired giving them yet another life of adventure. Though small, these acts seem to capture Gran's resilience - an ability to make-do without much, whatever happens. A self-proficiency that cannot be shaken.
Maybe building the resilient futures we yearn for and write about starts with knitting brown socks and planting some carrots.
James Tugwell
james.tugwell@austcommunitymedia.com.au
0447 189 738
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