I’ve spent a lot of my life noticing things.
I didn’t realise it was anything.
The Shape of Ordinary Things
The Shape of Ordinary Things is a collection of small observations about everyday life.
A summer shower.
A favourite mug.
A library book stamped by strangers.
A purple jacket that feels a little too much for an ordinary day.
A cockatoo feather on a car seat.
The quiet after dropping the children at school.
A cat getting old in your lap.
These aren’t big stories.
They are the things I notice.
Some are familiar. Some are funny. Some stay with me for reasons I can’t quite explain.
You don’t need to read them all at once.
Pick one.
Read it slowly.
Notice what you notice.
The Shape of Ordinary Things is for anyone who has ever found themselves pausing over something small and wondering why it stayed with them.
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The story behind the book
When I was little, I used to go into the city with my mum to visit my grandmother and my Aunty Molly.
We’d take the bus.
There was a gum tree along the way.
It was enormous.
I don’t remember exactly where it was, or what kind of gum tree it was, or whether it was particularly beautiful.
It was just there.
And I always looked for it.
I never told Mum.
I never pointed it out.
I didn’t have a reason for looking.
I just liked seeing it.
Somehow, looking for that tree became part of the day.
There was Mum.
There was the bus.
There was the city.
There was my grandmother.
There was my Aunty Molly.
And there was the tree.
I don’t know if that’s when I started doing this.
Looking at things simply because I noticed them.
A particular window.
The way light fell across a floor.
A bird returning to the same fence.
The sound of someone mowing a lawn.
A cup that belonged to my grandmother.
The smell of rain before it arrived.
I think I spent much of my life noticing without realising I was noticing.
I didn’t know it was anything.
I certainly didn’t know it was writing.
But somewhere along the way, I began collecting these small things.
That’s how The Shape of Ordinary Things came about.
Not stories, exactly.
Just moments I couldn’t quite walk past.