We just gave a friend a bar of delicious-smelling soap for her birthday. I felt sort of guilty, in that it wasn't something "lasting." Once she has used it up, it will wash away down the drain and be GONE. (Oh my God........gone!) Then I realized that THAT was part of the gift!.............it will be GONE. (Down the drain, no need to store it.........!)
THERE WILL BE NOTHING LEFT of the gift! No monument. Nothing for my friend to look at twelve years from now and say, "What the hell am I hanging on to THIS for??? Oh. Yes. It was a gift from X and Z, and I can't toss it out."
While I was standing in the shower tonight, I suddenly had that horrific feeling of, "What if she doesn't LIKE soap???? What if she'd rather have a trophy with her name engraved on it, saying what a good neighbor she's been!!!?? The thought lasted only a moment. (I was, after all, in the shower, watching my own soap go down the drain to Neverland.)
I think of gifts I've given to my best loved people: The fake parrot on a perch that I gave to Pop when I was fourteen.....it hangs over my computer desk, reminding me of the chuckle that I heard from him when he saw it. I never look at it without remembering that chuckle, but it takes up space in my home, as well as my heart.
There was the white scarf I knitted, laboriously, when I was ten, also for my beloved father. I ran out of yarn somewhere in the midst of the knitting, so when I gave it to him for Christmas it only JUST made it around his neck. It was so wide and tightly-knit that it was inflexible. He wore that wretched piece of knitting, tightly pulled around his neck, to work every cold day for the rest of his working life, as if it were a crown jewel............and every time I pull it out of my hope chest and hold it to my heart, I love that man more for HIS loving me, and IT, than I can tell.
I sent a college friend, who had lost both of her parents within forty days of each other, a figurine of a red cardinal. She had seen a cardinal after their deaths, and knew that it was their "sign" to her. She "got it," and knew that I had sent her LOVE, not just a statue.
I sent a roll of toilet paper with Nancy Pelosi's face on every single square, to another friend...........one "outside of the box" friend. She laughed until she cried. I LOVED that she laughed. She hates Nancy Pelosi. She used the toilet paper, gleefully, I KNOW. (It, too, is gone, I'd bet.)
My favorite "gifts" these days are what I call "experiences:" Lunch out, dinner, a play, a movie, a trip to somewhere together.
I gave my son, Philip, a summer day at the Motown Museum in Detroit, where he sang "My Girl," in the very studio where "all the music" was made, at Hitsville. The smile on his face while he sang and danced there, that moment, will be with ME forever. He was happy!
My son and daughter only want checks for their birthdays or Christmas, now. It takes the fun out of giving, for me. One declares himself a "minimalist," and the other says she doesn't want any "clutter." I get it. (Just write the check, Mom, and don't clutter our lives.)
On the other side of the coin, I've received some wonderful gifts in my lifetime: a rabbit coat that was totally unexpected,when I was in college (quite in style, then,) a trip to Europe to celebrate my college degree, (accompanied by the giver, of course,) an old used Ford Falcon so I could get to my first job, and a sewing basket on legs that I have filled with any number of things other than sewing equipment over the years.
Randy has caught the "experience" bug, and he gives me wonderful surprises: a ride during which I was blindfolded, to a theatre for a play, a trip to a Virginia resort for a birthday, a weekend in a state park for another event. Great gifts, great memories: No "stuff" to fill up the corners of our rooms. Just memories.
Everyone's home is full of "stuff." Enough, already............. I want to give gifts that make a difference! If only it were so easy to give the gifts I'd really like to give to the people I love: The ones that I see while Magically Thinking. Oh, that I were so powerful!
My friend's daughter, another's husband, and one's mother would regain their health instantly! Unemployed would find dream jobs. Unrequited love would suddenly be reciprocated. None of those "gifts" would take up any space, but would be everything to the recipients.
These gifts just cannot be given by lowly mortals such as I, try though I may.
Imagine the JOY and happiness I would feel, to be able, willing, and happy to deliver to loved ones their hearts' desires, instead of a check or a gift card.
It's just not gonna happen, folks.
All I can do right now is give you a bar of good soap, a ticket to a decent play, a short trip to a "happening," or a memento to remind you of something or someone you love.
Just know that if I could, I would, without a moment's hesitation make everything all right in your world. (And I know, that if you could have given me what I wished for most in my life, you would have, too.)
But the "want to" is there, the wishful Magical Thinking goes on.......... and that's partly what love is about, isn't it?
Copyright: KP Gillenwater
