gift

The Grey T-Shirt.

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A few weeks ago, some neighbors asked me to hold the keys to their place while they went and checked the weather on another part of the planet.

We say, ‘vacation’, but what that really means seems to be coming back and telling everyone what the weather was like. In this case, it was hot.

The planet is hot, so that fits. I don’t know why going from one hot place to another when they’re both hot is a good idea, but some people think so. I’d go somewhere cool myself, but I suppose I’m strange. Or am I?

Anyway, I held the keys, they came back and they were sick when they came back – they went to a hot place and got sick, which doesn’t make much sense to me, but that’s what they did. They didn’t want me to catch what they had, and so I didn’t get to hand back the keys.

It weighed on me. I don’t like holding other people’s things for longer than I have to. It’s something I have in a part of my mind that I could have occupied by other things. Out of friendship, I rent space out to people on occasion, but I just don’t like being responsible for other people’s stuff because if something goes wrong, I’ll do what I think is right and that doesn’t always coincide with what people say they wanted after the fact. It’s different when you’re thinking about someone else’s stuff because you have to factor in what they would want.

It’s so annoying and annoyingly complicated. So I don’t like holding other people’s stuff.

This past weekend, I handed them the keys and gave an internal sigh of relief.

They had brought me a t-shirt. They’d mentioned it prior to and I thought nothing of it; I do not house-sit for t-shirts. Bad business model. I do it out of friendship. So I expected a friendship t-shirt, which generally would be a, “My friend went to check the weather in *insert city here* and got me this shirt” shirt.

When presented, I was pleasantly surprised it was a light grey, of the wicking material you find in athletic shirts that breaths so much better. The right color – you can never go wrong with light grey for me. Right material. Right size, which I have to downsize, but the shoulders will fit fine. Plus, it came with a story of 4 different people involved with selecting the shirt.

It has a story! It’s a pretty mundane story, but it was a good story.

All gifts should have stories.

There I was, very sincerely grateful over a simple t-shirt. Gifts are rare for me, they always have been. I grew up for the first 9 years of my life not celebrating birthdays, Christmas, etc. To me, gifts have always been things that appear unscheduled and unasked for, are what a person needs or wants or is something that you saw and the person reminded you of.

I would not mind being remembered as the guy in the grey t-shirt.

The Key

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KeyA morning of cutting brush out on the land, and a voice from a pickup on the road nearby shouts my name. I invite them up the hill; they had planted cassava when I had and had just gone to try to dig some up. They told me it was no good.

“It’s all in bush”, I said, looking over my cassava proud and tall in the beds, having just gone through by hand – pulling vines, hacking or pulling weeds. They admit to not keeping it clear… and yet, they thought by simply sticking it in the ground they would be able to reap something.

It doesn’t work that way. It never works that way. The expectation that it would work another way boggles me, a reality as clear as a sunrise, a truth as hot or cold as one makes it.  And of course, once there is bush, people start doing things – like letting their cows graze.

Crazy.

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The young man upstairs – about 6 – is doing handstands in front of my apartment. He’s getting better at them; I say so – it may be that he has the girl as an audience that inspires extra effort, but he has gotten better and I say so. I ask them if they’re ready for Christmas – people celebrate this thing, slaving for money to slave to purchase to give to other people – fellow slaves, typically – but it’s a popular thing, probably the most popular thing on the planet, and who am I to rob children of the dreams of their parents?

I expected a few remarks about Santa Claus, what they had asked for, etc. Instead, I was told that Santa Claus didn’t exist, that it was their parents. So I told them the truth.

“I am not a Santa Claus expert. I don’t know whether he exists or not.”

“But, T?”, they call me that, “But haven’t you gotten gifts for Christmas?”

“No.”

“Never?”

“No”

“Not even as a child?”

“No”

Now, I may have at some point gotten things for Christmas, but I wasn’t about to get into detail with inquisitive minds. I’ve never been much for all of that; when I wanted things I tend to get them – and as the years have come and gone, I have wanted less and less.

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I work for what I need, and what I want has become much more inline with what I need. I only bought a gift for one nephew that I have yet to drop off; I rarely buy things for people on agreed upon shopping periods… I do it randomly.

The point, I suppose, is that we have these myths that have become mandatory for society that make no sense to me. OK, let’s say that Jesus was born on this day – the reality being largely disproven – and even for an atheist, he was a nice guy who, after being born, disappeared until he was much older and was doing nice things (I’m waiting for someone to write “Jesus: The Missing Years”). But what are people actually buying each other other than shiny trinkets, metaphorical and otherwise? It keeps them happy, and that’s good.

We are all keys in our own ways, only – at least some of us – are sentient and can decide what locks we unlock. We choose our paths, we decide our futures with simple acts and simple habits. This, I suppose, was my gift from my abruptly ended childhood.

That key. That we can choose for temporary happiness or seek out contentedness, a nuance demonstrably lost in shopping sprees. Marketing constantly sells temporary happiness.

Contentedness is free.