I have a long way to go with figuring out how to live my life, but I am trying to look at my self, my house, and my things more thoughtfully now. When I do this, it’s easy to see that I have a lot of things — surely more than I need. For various reasons, it’s difficult to let some of them go. (Ten-year-old electrical bill receipts, on the other hand: pretty easy.)
One of the hardest items to let go is any object that someone has given me as a gift. Inherent in that gift are an intention, a value, and a purpose, even if I cannot at this time appreciate the gift’s actual value. I can’t let it go; they wanted me to have it! (Maybe if ten years pass, and I really don’t like it, and I now know I will never use it, I’ll take a deep breath and whisk it out the door when they’re not looking. Maybe.) If it’s a consumable item, the rules are a bit different. If it’s food, you eat it. If it’s wine, you drink it. If it’s a gorgeous handmade beeswax candle, do you light it up right away and melt it into a stump and throw it away? Well, probably not. And that’s where things begin to get complicated.
A few weeks ago while browsing one of my local Goodwill stores, I saw a bowl that I was just drawn to. I don’t intentionally collect china and tableware; I just wind up accumulating things that I think are pretty, particularly if they have cherry blossoms on them. I picked it up and set it back down. A few days later I was in the store again, and the bowl was still there. I picked it up and set it back down. The next time I was in the store, the bowl was still there. I tucked it into my arms, finished my browsing, and bought it. Because if you have seen something three times at a Goodwill store, it must be there for you. If that’s not a law, it should be considered a firm guideline.
So now I had the bowl I was apparently meant to have. But what was I going to do with it? I don’t have a china cabinet or extra space on the table to display it. I have a three-shelf glass cabinet in my office that is already filled with precious little Chinese and Japanese and English and German teapots and teacups and sake vases and sake cups and que-haces-tú. I looked around the house a bit and made a space for it on one of my bathroom shelves. It was too high up for anyone to look into it and see the cherry blossoms, but that was okay. I know they’re there.
Then I remembered the soaps. Those little soaps that girlfriends and work-friends give you just because. I don’t take a lot of baths and I don’t see myself as a fancy-soap person, but I receive soaps and I hang onto them for that nebulous “someday” when I might actually use them. Someday never comes, and so I have these soaps. At the end of the semester I had been given a bar of almond milk soap and a bar of goats’ milk soap — pretty fancy stuff. Into the pretty bowl they went. Somewhere in a drawer, wrapped in wax paper, was a little bar that a friend had given me a couple of years ago. She had probably made it herself. I found it, and into the pretty bowl it went. The bars sat there, being fragrant.
Then my daughter spoke up. “Mom, we made soap at school on the last day! It was really cool! I made one without glitter and one with a [copious amount] of glitter!” We quarantined the glitter-bomb in a sandwich bag, and into the pretty bowl they went, being fragrant and colorful.
And then I had the surgery, for which I had to wash with a regular soap and then wash with a special soap that was designed to reduce the risk of post-surgical infection. Sexy, ¿no? No. Anyway, I did all that and had the surgery and came back home. And then I thought, it’s probably not a good idea to use shower gels and plastic scrubbies right away. I should probably be more gentle until my incisions have had a chance to heal.
And then, finally realizing that the purpose of a gift was to be used, I drew a warm bath, picked out a soft, fluffy, gentle washcloth, and unwrapped the little handmade soap from the wax paper, and started to use it.
Thank you for the soap. I get it now.
I’m cruising along on the Kindness KAL. Today I completed Section Four and began Section Five. If I really wanted to push it, I could probably finish the fifth section tonight. However: (1) It’s not a race, (2) I have been expressly forbidden to push anything in the next six five weeks, and (3) I would really rather relax with a book this evening. Friday nights are for relaxing, so that’s what I’ll try to do (trying not to work too hard at it).
Where will I stage my amateur photo shoots when the shawl-in-progress is larger than the top of my washing machine? We’ll see.
Chocolate Sheep 