Gifts

We received a mysterious package yesterday. It was a book, called "I capture the Castle", by Dodie Smith. Attached to the book was a note, written in cut-out magazine letters, like a ransom note, commanding "Read this Book". It was sent in a beat up manila envelope covered with stamps in odd denominations--like 1 1/4 cents.

"Do you know anyone from Maryland?" I asked Lilly, looking at the postmark.

"No. Do you?"

We've had a few mysterious gifts lately. A purple rose was left on the doorstep for Lilly a few weeks ago. The note attached said, "From Purple Flowers." And on Mother's day, we both got flowers--yellow daisies. My note said, "For Lilly's Mother." and Lilly's note said, "You're perfect just the way you are." Hmmm.....

Maybe it's my friend Ray? He once told me that, since I was now his friend, I was sentenced to a lifetime of weird mail. I've decided I like the mail again. Lilly and I wrote letters to each other all summer while she was away. It's nice not to have the demanding immediacy of email, right there, like a spoiled child at Target. Nice to be able to write something over several days, put a stamp on it. I like the interaction. I like that people are involved. I like the paper. I miss physical things.

I stopped sending letters to people because I became afraid of anthrax. My ex fiancee, the NASA guy put this idea into my head. We used to write each other occasional letters. One day he said, "Let's switch to phone calls. I can't stand the idea that my letter might brush up against a letter containing anthrax and inadvertently poison someone." I think he just wanted to talk on the phone. Now we neither talk on the phone NOR write letters. So much for that ruse. It's okay.

But Lilly and I wrote letters. She was at Interlochen this summer, and they wouldn't let her email or talk on the phone. They had phone cards available for the kids, but Lilly flaked and didn't buy one. She resorted to using her Swiss friend's phone. I'm sure the Swiss friend's mother is going to have a cow when she sees the bill. "Can I offer you anything for your phone bill?" I asked the girl. "Oh, no," she said, "I think the minutes are free." Hmmm...free Swiss minutes? Not so sure about that. I'm going to write and ask the mother, or maybe just go ahead and send a check. Can you cash American checks in Switzerland? Well, the Swiss have all those banks, right? I mean, I think so...

I'm Swiss on my maternal grandfather's side. They were bankers. He was absolutely ruthlessly meticulous when it came to settling financial matters fairly. For example, I found a receipt for groceries when I was cleaning out the garage a few weeks ago, with a charge of $1.69 added for gas. I had just had Nick and he picked up groceries for me, drove them out to Miami Beach, and charged me for the gas. He said that this sort of tallying avoided fights later on. But I thought it was ridiculous. One time he found out he had received the Disney channel by accident from the cable company. The cable company was just going to write it off, but my grandfather figured out the difference and sent them a check. His family's bank, during the great Depression, never foreclosed on a farm, though. They were very proud of this--as late as 1991, my grandfather still received mortgage payments in the mail from those families, long after the bank had closed--small amounts--$35 or $100--but a fortune back then, I guess. I find these little scraps from him--and there are a lot--and I think about how much they pissed me off at the time, and now I just cling to them--his meticulous cursive, getting shakier as the years passed. Tangible. HE wrote those words. Holding the pen, folding up the paper. It's a dimension of contact we don't get anymore. I still have a Christmas check from him, uncashed. It's on the mantle in the living room. "You are a hard working woman" it states in the memo. High praise.

The trick, I realize, is to understand the gifts that people give you within the context of the giver. Very few people can give outside their own frame of reference. Almost no one will give you what you really want. They give what they want. Sad but true.

Or maybe not sad. Just true. I try to remember that the gift is the giving itself.