Gifts

A source of joy in my life has always been the ability to give people gifts. Early on I discovered that the kind of gifts that bring the most joy to me are the gifts of myself. So I have crafted things, or spent hours, weeks, and months shopping for rare items I knew someone wanted. When my daughter-in-law lost the toothpick and tweezers from her Swiss Army knife, I bought them for her a month later from the new cutlery store that had just opened in the mall. It turned out that she didn’t care. 

Outflow without Inflow

For the most part my gifts have been disdained, dismissed as being not expensive enough, or somehow diminished. To give a thoughtful gift and have it refused or unappreciated is a joy-stealer. Giving is an outflow that anticipates an inflow. Without the inflow the act is incomplete and unsatisfying.

As a child I had little opportunity to give good gifts, and I watched with understanding and disappointment as adult family members put on false faces and expressed condescending gratitude. It hurt.

Blighted Hope

The first Christmas after I was married, I had a plethora of relatives and little abundance. So I invited them all to a Christmas-week party. There were eight children and parents and grandparents enough for all of them. I had found a magnificent recipe and example of ginger-bear cookies in a Sunset Magazine—with not just frosting faces; these bears were covered with hard white frosting and then painstakingly painted all over with plaids or stripes or paisleys, with gloves, and sashes, boots and belts with buckles, and fancy cuffs with braid on the sleeves. I used pasteboard to cut out the pattern given on the page, as I had no proper cookie cutter for the shape. Food colors were not considered dangerous at the time, and I bought colored sugar crystals to add sparkle to buckles, buttons, and braid. I painted the name of a child on each sash, then wrapped each bear in the newly invented Saran Wrap and taped a ribbon hanger to the back of it and placed all the cookies on the tree. I had spent at least an hour on each cookie and loved the results. How eagerly I anticipated watching the children biting the heads and arms off their prizes. I expected that would the the highlight of my Christmas.

For the adults I made marzipan candies, shaped and painted to resemble bananas, oranges, apples, peaches, plums, and nectarines. And then, of course, I cooked a properly abundant meal for everyone. I was full of hope that my gifts would be enjoyed.

I had reckoned without my mother-in-law: “Don’t eat those cookies! Look how much work they were. You have to save them.” and to three of the children, “Look what you did! You took a bite out of it. You’ve ruined it.” and “Did you make these candies? They’re beautiful; we can’t eat all your hard work,” she said as she grabbed the bowl I was passing around and put it firmly back on the side board.

She transformed my beautiful gifts to the children from joy to guilt. A month later I threw the candies away; they’d become too dusty to eat.

“Pearls before …”

Over the years I saw my grandmother praise me for my skill and invention as she admired the gifts I had made for her, and then explain that even though they were clever and useful, they weren’t proper gifts like the expensive ones she gave people. If I had only obeyed her and married a millionaire, I would have been able to give the right sort of presents.

Sadly, when I lived with my daughter and granddaughter, they did not appreciate my knitted gifts either. Months of work with expensive yarns ended on their bedroom floors, eventually to be piled into black trash bags and carried to the curb.

Vieques: The Island of Cheerful Receivers

I know how to make scrubbies, the best dish washing tool I have ever found. I give them away by the dozens every year now. All the staff at my favorite café get them along with the members of my craft group, even the people who walk around cleaning the trash off the streets. I’m grateful for the trash cleaners and feel they are probably under-appreciated, so I give them thanks and gratitude along with the tiny gift. I can crochet one in 20 minutes; and I may give away as many as 60 a year, so it’s only about 20 hours of work for heartwarming smiles and genuine gratitude. Hooray!

This past year I started making what I call Gratitude Bracelets. They have three larger beads on each and I give them away with a card that says in both English and Spanish that the idea is to touch each large bead and name something you’re grateful for. I believe that gratitude brings joy and that the more people in the world who are in joy, the better. They don’t take very long to make using elastic cord and a dab of glue on the knot. The little cards are a bit of a nuisance to get printed, but possible. I may have given away fifty or sixty of these so far. They are heavier to carry, come in three sizes, and need a table or counter top to be spread out upon so a giftee can choose a bracelet; they’re somewhat harder to give away. But the happiness people express when they get one almost lifts me off the ground, and in Vieques when people practice using their beads for the first time, often the first bead invokes from them gratitude for Jesus Christ. 

And I have found an outlet even for my origami habit. I prefer to use 3” paper for my cranes and roses and butterflies, and one time a barista at D’Frozz popped one onto the end of a coffee stirrer and said it would be cool to have lots of them to put into coffee. So I’ve been keeping the café supplied with  30 to 50 of them most every day since. I make them in odd moments while sitting at my desk—as I wait for a student to come into a Zoom meeting or to figure out how to improve a badly written sentence. At the end of the day I usually have a small pile of origami critters on my desk. The next day at the café I make as many more as are needed for the day.

To be able to give a gift and to have it accepted with thanks instead of criticism, is one of the most satisfying things that has happened to me in my life. I don’t need any more payback than that. 

The Law of Return

But my 83rd birthday just passed and the law of return seems to have caught up to me. The day before my birthday I received this text: “I have arranged a surprise for you tomorrow.  Will pick you up @ 1:15.” My landlady, upstairs neighbor, and member of my Craft Circle, Elizabeth, had sent it.

She took me to the restaurant, Mango, where I found a table for six with balloons at each seat and a special birthday balloon and card at the head of the table where I was instructed to sit. The card had signatures and cash in it. In minutes the entire craft circle membership was there, minus Francesca who is in Mexico for the wedding of her daughter.  I had never been to Mango before. It’s a lovely place with an expansive view. I followed recommendations for what to order. When we had eaten, the consensus was that we had to have dessert, even though each of us had boxed up at least half of our order to take home. So we chose one coconut custard and six spoons. It came with a lighted candle. So much fun!

How could I answer that—she sees me several times a week and knows that I change earrings all the time—but I didn’t want to insult her for asking a dumb question. I managed a polite response and she persisted: “Those earrings are really beautiful. Where did you get them?”

Ileana asked, “Where are you going?”

Just then out of the kitchen came the café owner, Felix, the pastry chef, Saika, and the manager, Morélis with a hot chocolate lava cake topped with vanilla ice cream and chocolate syrup, with whipped cream and a cherry in a pile on the side. I set aside the bag I was picking up and was surprised. Joann and Ileana were happy to eat all the chocolate for me. I had a few bites of ice cream and took the cherry, my right as the birthday girl. 

True gifts are never about things: scrubbies, beads, origami, expensive lunches, and chocolate lava cakes. True gifts, given and received, last forever: friendship, love, and joy.

Happy birthday, Lynn.