Today, whilst helping my husband with some flyers for his latest jazz workshop in the local arts centre, I tripped on a beautiful story.
In our neighbouring suburb, there is a certain street, coincidentally called Mint Street, as with our acoustic keyboard/bass duo. And on this street was a little corner crafts shop called ‘Stitcher’s Corner‘. I’d noticed this from the time we moved in. Something told me that there was a good and significant overlap between loveable old-fashioned sewing buddies and loveable old-fashioned swing. So i asked him to pull over when there was a chance.
Getting off, I entered the little corner shop. It has cross-stitched ‘paintings’ of horses (needlepoint tapestries) and other kitsch things from a different time. A little lady behind the shelves was arranging her goods. I went behind the shelf to say hello and heard the most amazing story.
Sheron, originally from Johor Bahru, just across the causeway from myself, and schooled in Kuala Lumpur at St Mary’s lived in Armadale that is a 40min drive away in the Perth Hills everyday for work here at the Stitcher’s Corner. Most people work in their precinct but not Sheron. She revealed that as young girls, she and her sister would cross the bridge (but no longer… she is grateful since she has acrophobia) at Mint Street to get to the crafts shop. She laughed and shared, beaming and overflowing with joy, how she had once joked with her sister, teasing her that she would be the one to find a career with this shop. They loved the crafts and would come often. Today, she took her ‘sister’s place’, working in what she called her ‘candy store’. I would have burst into tears listening to her little story in the 10mins I spent in the store, if she hadn’t been so filled with smiles.
She took one of our flyers and said she’d let her boss know.
But what she didn’t know was how she had already made our day. :)
