The Perfect Gift

Last year, Mercury, a gift shop on Second Street with an ever-changing array of wares sported this shop window at Christmas.

Let's face it...everyone wants to get it or give it: a perfect gift, beautifully wrapped. A suprise and yet 'just what I/you wanted.' Ninety-nine percent of the time, I think, gifts fall even flatter than our own purchases (which have a sad history of satisfaction themselves).

I love gift-giving. I'm not so keen on receiving things now. Which seems callous and selfish in a way. I was, as a child, quite caught up on the receiving end. I have wrestled with the issue over the years and recently in these pages.

My family's religious tradition is Christianity and we always heard about the gifts of the wise men. Gold, frankincense and myrrh. Who knew about the last two? Gold, pretty clear concept even to a kid. Turns out you can buy the gifts of the Magi online if you like. I guess that would be the 'perfect' gift.

I don't buy too many gifts these days and I secretly hope I don't receive too many. But I like any presents I do buy to have that enigmatic quality of surprise and yet perfection. How did you know? How could you not have known?

Needless to say, I rarely succeed. And I've rarely ripped off the paper and thought, "Wow. I wasn't expecting that, but it is so me!"

I wrote a monologue for a salon once, about getting gifts that you really, really want. I couldn't control the topic. It wanted to be a piece about possessions, being possessed by possessions, religion, holidays, gender-specific toys, gender-bias, the creative mind. It wanted to be a novel, a triology even, a memoir of a hundred-year-old person, a series of fables set to music like Wagner's ring. I had only a five to seven minute monologue, though, with a script I didn't follow printed on two sheets of paper, not quite full, and two props. A toy, an Erector set over forty years old and a Polaroid Land Camera 100 that I received over thirty years ago. The Erector Set had a picture on the front of a boy in a plaid shirt launching a plastic rocket from his metal girder creation. It still has it as a matter of fact. The very set is in the spare room, collecting dust, with a motor that no longer works. Truth is, I have the camera, too, stuck in a closet somewhere. These things were so important to me that I haven't been able to give them up. Soon I will, though. I hope.

I have been posting every day in Holidailies and hoping to receive a 'best of' nod from the reader's panel. I started this entry because the writing prompt of the day is "A gift that didn't disappoint. "I was just sitting here, reviewing my notes for that monologue and looking at my pictures of childhood things and thinking what I could write. Too many things are flooding my brain. Boy...that writing prompt really did it for me if the hope was to get words to spill out. Then I realized (what is it we always say 'to my chagrin?') that I suggested the writing prompt. That took the wind out of my sails somehow. And brought me back to my first thought when I saw the prompt (and failed to look at the link under 'suggested by').

The fish umbrella. It wasn't Christmas. It was my birthday. Which is the same day as a friend of mine's birthday, only I'm a year older. It was 2001 (the last year my mother was alive and not in the hospital on my birthday). We were celebrating at Mom and Dad's house here in Austin. I must have given my friend a present. But I don't remember what it was. But she gave me the fish umbrella. A fine Italian umbrella with a handle with a fish motif. I love that umbrella. I've made sure not to lose it so far.

Well, I'm weary of the topic now. Is there Holidailies recognition for writing the most writing prompts? Because I'm winning. Unless you count Jette and I don't because she's making the selections.