The Quiet Strength of Ordinary Days
- Agnieszka Wolsoncroft
- 2 minutes ago
- 6 min read
by Agnieszka Wolsoncroft
Yesterday morning, David was working, so it was just the two of us at the market.
I had the list. Anya had the job.
“Six potatoes, please.”
Off she went. Back she came, a brown paper bag swinging in her hand, slightly out of breath, entirely pleased with herself. “What’s next, Mummy?”
Broccolini. Aubergines. Tomatoes — and she is very particular about the tomatoes, pressing them gently the way she has seen me do, rejecting the ones that don’t meet her standards. People look up in mild surprise when I call across the stall: “Anya, can you get me a bunch of broccolini?” and she appears, entirely certain, with exactly the right thing.
We have a favourite pancake vendor at the markets. Yesterday he wasn’t there. Anya looked at me, gave a small shrug, and said: “Doughnuts?”
That shrug. I love that shrug. A year ago, a missing pancake vendor was a genuine disappointment — the plan had been pancakes, and the plan mattered. She is still learning, gently and gradually, that when things don’t go to plan they don’t have to be a disappointment. That you can look at what is actually there and choose that instead. It doesn’t always come naturally. But yesterday, it did. And sometimes — this is the part I love — the doughnuts are better anyway.
And then — the dumplings, that look exactly like our Polish pierogi. Chicken and mushroom, not always available, but there yesterday, and when she spotted them, her eyes went wide in the way that only happens when something exceeds expectations. She had them for breakfast, with soy sauce, and she ate every single one.
Before we left, we stopped at the musician playing near the entrance. We always do. We put something in the tin, because he is giving us something — the colour he adds to an ordinary Saturday morning — and that deserves to be acknowledged. Anya knows this without being told anymore. She just goes.
On the drive home, I found myself thinking: this is it, isn’t it. This is the whole thing. This ordinary Saturday morning, with its list and its potatoes and its doughnuts-instead-of-pancakes and its lucky dumplings and its music at the gate. This is the stuff that a life is actually made of.
*
There are weeks — and the past fortnight has had its share of them — that are simply full.
Anya had a Bluey party at after school club. She is rehearsing a boogie dance performance with her class. And yesterday afternoon, after the market and the dumplings and the music, she went to grading for her martial arts.
I watched her face during the grading. She was tired — the kind of tired that lives in the body, not just the eyes. A full fortnight sitting in her small shoulders. But she stood straight, and she did the work, and she came home with a black stripe on her green belt.
This is what perseverance looks like when it isn’t dramatic. Not the grand, cinematic push through something enormous. The quiet, daily kind. Showing up when you are already tired. Finishing the week. And then sitting down to a bowl of spaghetti bolognese — one of your favourites — when you can barely keep your eyes open, because some things are simply worth staying awake for.
The stripe on the belt. The empty bowl of pasta. Small victories. And both, in their own way, entirely worth celebrating.
Perseverance is not always climbing a mountain. Sometimes it is simply finishing the week.
*
Over the past couple of weeks, the sky made the decision for us on a few afternoons.
Lately, rain in Perth in August is a gift, even when it doesn’t feel like one. The garden doesn’t need us. The outdoor plans quietly dissolve. And in their place, something simpler appears: the bath, the books, the particular quality of an afternoon that has nowhere to be.
Anya and I read on the sofa with Leia and Gizmo arranged around us like small warm sentinels. There was a cup of something hot. No schedule. Just the rain on the window and the story on the page and the completely ordinary miracle of having nothing more pressing to do than find out what happens next.
Anya asked questions on those afternoons that surprised me — following a thread of thought somewhere unexpected, making connections I hadn’t thought to make. Rainy days are not lost days. They are the days the imagination gets to stretch.
I am grateful for every single one of them.
*
I don’t think we talk about ordinary days enough. We talk about the milestones — the birthdays, the achievements, the trips, the moments that make it into the photographs. And those matter, of course they do.
But the ordinary days are where we actually live. The market on a Saturday morning. The dinner at the end of a tired week. The rainy afternoon with the books and the dogs and the bath. These are the days that quietly build us — our flexibility, our perseverance, our curiosity, our capacity for contentment.
They are also the days most easily overlooked. Most likely to be rushed through on the way to something else. Most likely to be dismissed as unremarkable.
They are not unremarkable. They are, in many ways, the whole point.
*
Thanksgiving. Appreciation. Gratitude.
Thanksgiving (Action):
This fortnight, show up for one ordinary thing as though it matters — because it does. The Saturday market, the family dinner, the rainy afternoon. Bring your full self to it. Notice the dumplings. Tip the musician. Stay awake for the spaghetti. Thanksgiving is the act of treating the ordinary as worthy of your full attention. Which it is.
Appreciation (Awareness):
Notice what the ordinary days are quietly building in you. The small adjustments teaching flexibility. The tired Fridays building perseverance. The rainy afternoons feeding your imagination. Appreciation is looking at the unremarkable Tuesday and seeing that it is doing more work than it looks.
Gratitude (Feeling):
Let yourself feel genuinely grateful for the ordinary. For the market on a Saturday morning. For the favourite dinner at the end of a long week. For the dog on the sofa and the rain on the window and the story on the page. For a small girl with a brown paper bag of potatoes, running back to ask what’s next. These are not small things. These are the things.
What you focus on expands. This week, focus on the ordinary. You might be surprised how extraordinary it turns out to be.
Today, Anya has a black stripe on her green belt and a full stomach and a story waiting to be finished.
That is a very good ordinary day.
That is, in fact, a great one.
With love and gratitude,
Agnieszka
If this post found you in the middle of an ordinary fortnight that deserves a little more appreciation, the 7-Day TAG Gratitude Reset is exactly that — seven days of gently noticing what is already good.
Next Sunday, ‘Hidden in Plain Sight’ lands on Substack with the TAG fortnightly and a new word — Curiosity. After rainy afternoons and unexpected questions and books that opened new worlds, it feels like exactly the right word at exactly the right time. Come and find it there.
For a new blog post, come back in a fortnight — I’ll be writing about the people who changed my life without knowing it. The ones who never knew what they gave us, and yet gave us everything. I have a feeling you’ll have someone like that in your life too. See you then.
Read more about gratitude and the TAG Method: GRATITUDE & THE TAG METHOD
If you'd like to read my previous posts, click here:
Comments