Before it leaves your hands

On my way home from Greytown at the weekend, I stopped in Masterton to fill my car at the Caltex nearest the town centre.

I pulled up beside the pump, reached for my wallet and, as I turned towards the bowser, noticed an attendant standing beside it.

Completely caught off guard, I looked at him and asked, "You're going to fill my vehicle?"

"How much would you like?" he replied, as though it were the most ordinary thing in the world.

I told him how much I wanted and admitted I was quite blown away, explaining that the Caltex in our small town doesn't have forecourt attendants. Before I left, I thanked him, then thanked the cashier as well because I wanted them both to know how much I had appreciated something that had quietly turned an ordinary stop for fuel into something memorable.

On the drive home, I found myself thinking about how much small acts of care can affect us.

Many years ago, a colleague arrived at a meeting we were both attending carrying a tiny posy of lavender from her garden. I didn't even know she knew it was my birthday, yet all these years later I can still picture that little posy and remember exactly how cared for I felt in that moment.

As I continued driving, I realised that wasn't the only memory that had stayed with me. Over the years there have been other moments that have lingered, not because they were extravagant or life changing, but because somebody had taken just a little extra care.

Those memories have also made me realise something else. Sometimes it's the absence of care that stays with us just as long.

There have been times I've gone out of my way to support a local maker or business, only to discover the final details hadn't been given the same care. I still remember helping at a fundraiser where lunches were handed out from old banana boxes. The food was perfectly good and nobody went hungry, yet I couldn't help thinking how different the whole experience might have felt if they had simply been placed in baskets or set out on a table with a cloth. The sandwiches would have tasted exactly the same, but somehow it would have felt as though the people receiving them mattered just a little bit more.

While I've been working on Four Worlds, I've found myself paying more and more attention to how people experience Beckah. Not just the candles themselves, but how someone feels when they stop at my stall at a market, or when they open a parcel that has arrived in the mail.

Many years ago, a designer friend said something to me that I've never forgotten.

"The envelope matters too."

The candles themselves have always been made with care. If one doesn't meet my standard, it doesn't leave the workshop. I remelt it because I've never wanted someone to open a parcel and feel disappointed.

Over the past six months I've found myself paying far more attention to everything around the candle. The wrapping. The Field Notes tucked inside each parcel. The flowers on my market stall. All those little things I'd once thought of as separate. Not because they change the candle, but because they matter too.

For a long time those two things weren't quite aligned. The candle carried one standard, while everything around it carried another. I'd always known they should tell the same story, I just hadn't quite found the way to do it.

Perhaps the last step is asking a different question.

Before it leaves your hands, how will the person receiving it feel?

I've realised it has very little to do with candles. It could be a meal, a gift, an email, a conversation or even the things we choose to pass on to charity. Before any of them leave our hands, there's one last chance to stop and think.

Would I feel respected if someone gave this to me?

For me, that's what care looks like. Not perfection, and certainly not extravagance, but taking a moment to think about the person on the other end.

Long after we've forgotten the object itself, we often remember how someone made us feel.