I put my ‘tablecloth top’ on the other day. I call it that in honour of all those crocheted tablecloths of the 1970s. There were party plans and decorators draping these cloths over side tables and bedspreads. Oh, it was a weird time. I was just a kid, so I simply observed the weirdness of the adults around me, and their crocheted décor. It’s funny how the simplest things stay in your mind. Like how my tablecloth top has taken on another memory.

We were travelling between states, back before coronavirus and border passes, and had left our motel early, as we usually do—Stew likes to get a few hundred kilometres done before breakfast. We rolled into a larger country town that gave us a choice of a few eateries and decided on a bakery that sat at the corner of an intersection.

It was already warm in the sunshine and we sat with our meals outside to watch the morning’s goings-on. It was going to be a hot day, but it was comfortable for now. With our tummies full and coffees in hand, we walked past the bakery to our car.

It was the sound of mad tapping on the glass window that caught our attention and my first thoughts were that we’d left something at our table. But I was wrong.

A lady who was eating inside the bakery pointed dramatically at me and then pinched her clothes at her shoulder and jiggled it up and down. ‘I LOVE your top!’ She mouthed through the glass. I smiled and mouthed ‘Thank you’ back. She must’ve been a fan of the old tablecloths, too.

Of course, it felt lovely to be noticed. Who doesn’t love a compliment? Yet some of us aren’t noticed very often, and if we are, it’s for something negative. It got me thinking about compliments and how often we notice attributes or aspects of people that we like, but we don’t take the extra effort to ‘tap on the window’. The lady in the bakery could have quite easily mentioned to her dining friend that she liked my top, and left it at that, but she made the effort to do some tapping to be sure I knew too.

30 years ago, I read a book called ‘Silver Boxes’ by Florence Littauer. I loved it so much, I had to keep buying copies to replace the ones I’d give away. What I remember most about the book were the tales of unexpected joy on people’s faces when they were ‘noticed’ by others; for their special earrings, their kind demeanour, their gentle smile or the way they performed their job or a task. Florence Littauer called it the ‘gift of encouragement’ and showed how our words were like gifts, or silver boxes to each other.

I’ve never forgotten that lesson outside the bakery window, and now my tablecloth top reinforces it for me each time I wear it. I try to ‘notice’ the good in people everywhere I go, and make the effort to ‘tap the glass’ to be sure they know they are seen too.

Here’s a challenge for you. Step out and ‘tap on the glass’ a few times today, and see how it makes you feel to see others light up at your words.

Can you imagine how uplifted our communities would be if we just ‘tapped on the glass’ a little more?