Public Service Announcement

Is the expression “wouldn’t be dead for quids” Australian? Has to be, right? Or from New Zealand? Or working-class England? I love that expression. It’s funny and dark and hopeful all at the same time. It’s the opposite of the woman who used to live in my grandmother’s retirement village, who, when you asked her how she was going, would say “Ooooh I’m getting old, love. Won’t be here next Christmas.” She said it every time I saw her for about six years, from the same chair, in the same corner, and I only stopped hearing her say it because she outlived my grandma. So much of life is about your attitude. Some of the people I know who have the best attitudes are the ones who’ve been through the most.

Public Service Announcement: you don’t have to be happy. You don’t have to be optimistic or jolly or make people feel better about themselves. It doesn’t hurt though, whenever possible, to notice some nice things as well as the terrible ones. To not sit in a chair in the corner thinking you won’t be here by Christmas, but to be like the other woman at my grandma’s nursing home who got up every morning, dressed in her favourite colours (green or lilac) and went to help out the Meals on Wheels people and then came back and regaled us all with stories about them.

Notice the ladybugs.

Notice the best thing about what each person is wearing. A nice brooch or a stripy T-shirt or rainbow shoelaces.

Notice, when you’re in a bad mood and everything is the pits, what helps you feel better. A chat with a mate? A certain TV show? Chocolate? Turn up the music on your favourite song and see if that doesn’t help.

Notice the people who are helping the other people.

Watch something funny. Call a funny friend. Flick through TikTok and marvel at the glorious idiocy that abides there.

Have a look at the Lost Dogs’ Home’s posts about animals that need homes and see if you don’t fall in love with one of them.

Be kind to someone else. Take a bunch of flowers to someone. Donate something. Call an elderly relative who doesn’t get to chat much. Even if everything else is terrible, you can make it better for someone else.

There’s something that people do in meditation that I never knew I was allowed to do. I thought doing meditation was all about emptying your mind and entering some kind of zen state similar to when TV stations in the olden days turned off late at night and just went to black. No, apparently. No, what happens, you see, is that our brains are taught to go at a thousand miles a minute and be on high alert for danger and in search of new data. All of that is natural, so your brain doing that is no surprise. No, what you do, apparently, is you acknowledge these thoughts interrupting you as you’re trying to do meditation and you go, “huh, there’s a thought, hello thought”, and you just return (sans self-incrimination) to focusing on your breathing or whatever you’re supposed to be doing. I feel like this is a cute metaphor. I feel like too often I pass up the opportunity to just notice something and acknowledge it and move on. Like, I’m in a bad mood, or I’m late, or I hate cleaning this bath and why doesn’t anybody else do it. Each of these is a very legitimate reason to be annoyed (this last one, you may have noticed, is rather specific and very familiar to me since I was doing it this morning). Allowing these things to take over the narration of your life story would be a shame, though.

Things in your own life feel so big and central that it’s easy to forget that you’re one of billions of people who have lived and died already on this planet, and that there are people all over the world right now with different problems that feel just as huge. If you were told you had a week to live because the entire world was on a collision course with the sun, wouldn’t life feel different? Wouldn’t you want to focus on the right things?

What are the right things? Well that’s up to you, isn’t it.

Acknowledge the other things, say “hello other things” but don’t forget: you might as well put on your lilac suit and do Meals on Wheels, because ya wouldn’t be dead for quids.

Lorin Clarke is a Melbourne-based writer. The new series of her radio and podcast series, The Fitzroy Diaries, is on ABC Radio National and the ABC Listen app now.

Serves 3-4

6 chicken drumsticks 200g (1 cup) medium-grain rice 1 onion, finely chopped 2 tablespoons olive oil Pinch of salt and black pepper

Preheat the oven to 180°C (160°C fan-forced).

Wash and pat dry the chicken drumsticks, then transfer to a large saucepan and cover with plenty of water. Bring to the boil over high heat, then immediately reduce the heat to a very low simmer, cover and cook for 20 minutes, occasionally skimming off any foam that rises to the surface.

Remove the chicken drumsticks from the pan and strain the stock into a bowl, reserving 500ml (2 cups). Pour the stock into a 25cm x 20cm baking dish, then add the rice, onion and oil – and salt and pepper to taste. Transfer to the oven and cook for 30 minutes.

Place the poached drumsticks on top of the rice, then return to the oven and cook for a further 15 minutes, until the chicken is lightly golden and cooked through and the rice is tender.

Divide among plates and serve. C hicken and rice sounds pretty simple, hey? It is. But its worth and meaning to us both isn’t quite so simple. This now iconic meal was the beginning of our Yiayia Next Door community. It provided both of us with the comfort, support, nourishment and love we desperately needed after we tragically lost our beautiful mother in the very house we now call our own.

Next door lives our very own angel, Yiayia (grandmother in Greek). And this was the first dish she gifted us after our mother passed away. Yiayia had been neighbours with our mother’s family for decades, but this simple and nourishing plate wrapped in foil was the start of a new friendship. Since that day, she’s taken us under her wing and regularly sends food around. We’ve become a family.

When we are asked which is our favourite meal from Yiayia, our answer is always chicken with rice. Other than being perfectly seasoned with just the right amount of salt and pepper, this recipe brings us back to our very first over-the-fence interaction.

Yiayia whips this up effortlessly, as she has been making it for quite some time for her family, and now for her newly adopted grandchildren: yours truly. The chicken is almost always falling off the drumstick, and it is only ever purchased from the local chicken shop at the Preston Market. The combination of onion and rice goes hand in hand, and as the chicken is so tender it’s great to pick off the meat and mix it all in so you can enjoy the flavours together.

We hope this recipe provides you with the inspiration to be the angel next door to your own family and friends. Yiayia’s identity remains a secret at her request, but she shows how anyone can help someone in need.

LUKE AND DANIEL MANCUSO WITH YIAYIA