“Some folks never learn to read the room… they hear someone’s pain that reflects their experience and say to the woman weeping at her miscarriage, ‘that’s nothing, I had six of them’. Without meaning to hurt, they do,” writes Kindness columnist ANTONIO DI DIO.

I’m dawdling down the street of the most special town in the world for the first time in years, along with five 20-somethings.

They are among my favourite people in the world, on my favourite street in the world. 

We meander past a café that was a bookshop that was a medical centre annex that was the outpost of the mechanics that was a video store that was three slum dwellings that was the repository of the furniture shop.

This year my five beloved youngsters sit inside with me and it is a funky café with Frieda Kahlo and Mexican death goddess posters on the wall, and smiling kind people serving at the counter.

On one wall are a bunch of books, written by the owner, and the covers are by Bettina, a girl I spent 10 years at school with whose parents toiled on the bananas with mine for so many years.

Lovely covers they are, too. The beautiful shelves frame a couple of windows, one of which shows the annex at the back, nicely painted but still a composite of fibro, tin, asbestos, and the tiny crushed outhouse behind it, held together by funnel-webs and country town physics. 

I remember it well as that little room was where, for a tricky time, mum and dad and I used to live. Not particularly legally or luxuriously. But with joy.

This morning we six had just walked up the street from our Airbnb, the most impressive house in town, and the comparison was sweet, but the story – poor boy made good – is one I don’t like.

I was privileged, so me having “made good” is false and dumb. So that made me think, waiting for the pre-beach frappuccino concoctions they like, that perhaps there was no reason to tell the kids about this tiny room their dad came from. 

It reminded me of watching 12-year-olds in playgrounds talking about almost anything. “My dad fell over and broke his foot”, says Trev. Others reply: “That’s nothing, my dad broke his whole leg”. Boys will often have competitions, not conversations. Scorecards, not empathy. 

It spills over into adult life in some people, too. Sharon says she’s delighted because little Johnny got a certificate for English at school.

Her sister Beatrice says that’s great but cannot discuss it for a moment before bragging about her little Janey who came first in the universe in maths and climbed Kilimanjaro on the weekend for Brownies. It’s not mature or kind, but there’s often reasons.

Some folks I loved were so damaged by events that they spoke not a word of it for decades. Others were so hurt, without the quotidian connection with learning and social mores that culturally diverse people often suffer, that they simply never learned to read the room.

They hear someone’s pain that reflects their experience and say to the woman weeping at her miscarriage, “that’s nothing, I had six of them”. Without meaning to hurt, they do.

It’s not competition, it’s conversation. And what is the purpose of conversation? Depends on what your life is for. Are you collecting data for your next incursion? Does your health and wealth depend on crushing the other guy? Do you care for those around you? Are you here to distribute whatever love you have?

I’m figuring out my purpose and 60 more years and will have it down pat, but one thing’s for sure – our next generation of Australians do not need to know how tough we had it when that narrative is so useless to them. Them who’ve been here 60 millennia, many in this town, have had a pretty crap couple of centuries, just quietly

So did I share this morning that this was where I used to live? Damn right – and probably exaggerated, too. I hope to grow up soon! 

And I sure as hell hope that no one thinks of me as anything less than privileged – in that tiny space I experienced love and attention, support and kindness, and was a prince.

When I walked out that door on to the street the mechanic and furniture man and nurse all smiled hi, and the ladies at the Vinnies let me pick my books to read that day and maybe a new old T-shirt.

I’ve spent a career listening to others’ troubles and that’s a privilege, too. If someone gives us the honour of telling us their tales and troubles, they need our listening. We can share ours later, if invited. One day I’ll live up to that.

Antonio Di Dio is a local GP, medical leader and nerd. There are many more of his Kindness columns at citynews.com.au

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