29 Gifts: Days One to Eight
Nov. 3rd, 2009 09:18 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
windinthemaplesI started writing for NaNo at midnight on November 1st. Eight hundred words in, I called it a night and headed to bed. It wasn't flowing very well. I wasn't fired up to write it and I hadn't figured out who was the most appropriate narrator out of my cast of characters. They all know different things and have something else to contribute to the story. I toyed around with jumping from one to another. It was a pretty shoddy patchwork. Uninspiring. It would take an eternity to peck out 50,000 words at the rate I was going. I needed a story that was more ready to go. Was NaNo not for me this year?
I woke up after five hours alive with an idea for my 29 Gifts experience. I would organize a food drive in our building for the month of November. I couldn't sleep another moment, I had to jump out of bed and brainstorm and print things and daydream about how I could get my neighbors as involved and motivated as I was. My soul was on fire and my brain was nonstop and I knew, without any doubt, that NaNo was definitely not for me this year. I could spend my free time writing a story I don't know how to tell yet or I could spend it, a blaze of excitement, doing charitable work that would make the world around me a better place. The passion I have for one above the other made it a complete no-brainer.
I signed up for 29gifts.org and have spent eight days consciously looking for ways to give gifts every day. I've been blogging my experiences on that community, but thought I'd post every week or so here for those interested but not keen on surfing off LiveJournal to keep up.
Day One
I'd found, and loved, the concept of the 29 Gifts Challenge months ago. I never joined, perhaps in part because as a rule, I give a lot of gifts. As a witch, my worldview revolves around this idea that energy sent out into the world at large will come back to me, that negativity breeds negativity and that generosity is always rewarded. I regularly deliver bags and bags of good-condition items to charity, sponsor needy families in my neighborhood, drop food off for food pantries, send money for impoverished children abroad, struggling start-up businesses, and charities that capture my heart. I think, I'm a pretty giving person!
This year, for my birthday, I received a $25 gift card to Barnes & Noble. I wasn't sure what to buy with it, but I had the luxury of an evening browsing without my toddler in tow. There, within sight of the vegan cookbooks I was aiming for, was Cami's book. It was just my sort of thing! There was no question--it was the perfect birthday present for myself.
Finishing the book in tears, I recognized that it would be a powerful discipline to look for ways to be consistently gifting the world with my presence. As a stay-at-home mom without any local friends or family, I don't always feel connected to my community. As a naturally solitary person, I can be shy or resistant to the idea of inviting people over, making new friends, committing myself to accomplishing much more than caring for my son.
My first gift felt like a breakthrough. I discarded a few ideas before I came up with one that hurt a little, stretched me past my comfort level, and ultimately felt like a bigger gift.
I had my copy of Cami's book. Passing that along to someone else--that would be a wonderful first gift. I thought of my Paperbackswap.com account. Surely there'd be a hefty waiting list for a new book like this. I could offer my book there to the next person on that list! It felt impersonal and also ungifty--I'd receive credit for that book, could order another book in its place.
I thought through my friends and family and who might read and appreciate a book like this.
I knew who I didn't want to send it to--and that's what I did. My father, socially unpleasant to begin with, has spent his entire life focused solely on his own illnesses. My first memories of our interactions, as a little girl, include him telling me that he couldn't pick me up because I'd hurt his neck. A phone conversation with him becomes a litany of symptoms, attempted treatments, new prescriptions. It's like, he doesn't even want to know who I am. Who needs this book more than him, I thought, and what better gift than to reach out to someone that I don't want to have access to my safe, loving world? I knew it was the right thing to do. It was giving of myself--a gift of compassion and outreach.
I wrapped the book in vibrant red wrapping paper and attached a note.
"I know, with your illnesses, that you probably feel the same sense of scarcity that the author suffered in the beginning", I wrote, urging him to read and consider what his impact could be on the world if he focused outward even on the days where he's tempted to stay in bed, depressed, and count the ceiling tiles. I offered the challenge in a supportive, encouraging way. He'll find the package as a surprise, I rarely send anything his way. What a relief--to give something I thought I couldn't and to find that it leaves me feeling emotionally free and stable. His reaction doesn't matter--I've given in a spirit of compassion.
My long-distant's brother's birthday fell on my day one, too. I hadn't gotten him anything in the rush of our recent travels. I wasn't going to call, but I thought of how secretive and silent I must appear to my family. I don't reveal much of myself to them. So I called him, sang, and chatted for awhile. It was so freeing, so pleasant and I know it gave him unexpected pleasure to hear from me.
This gift-giving venture is going to be so much more than anonymous sentiment. It'll have to include ways for me to learn to give others access to me and my life, to get to know me, to have the chance to share my life with others.
Day Two
I spent most of the rainy, chilly day inside. I'd thought of taking my son to Lincoln Park Zoo to give him some time to run around outside, but naptime and his contentment to stay inside with his toys and PBS television lulled me into inaction, book reading and web-surfing. By three pm, with only a couple hours of daylight left, I pushed myself out the door in search of opportunities to give.
I dropped off a box of gifts at the shipping center, part of a spiritual mail swap that I signed up for that a friend was organizing. It didn't feel like a real give, frankly, since it was something that I'd planned to get out this week and had been rewarded already with a reciprocal package of my own.
Before leaving the house, I'd tucked a twenty dollar bill into my jeans pocket. Our neighborhood has a number of homeless people. Because of safety concerns, I rarely give money to those camped outside our grocery store or post office, sleeping in the bus shelters. It seems too dangerous to open my purse and fish around inside. This way, I figured, I'd be prepared to give. I pushed my son's tricycle down the street and realized something important--I was looking for gifting opportunities and it kept my head up and my gaze outward. I was paying more attention to the people around me and probably looked more approachable, too. What a difference, even in posture, to be watching the horizon instead of watching my footing.
I didn't cross paths with any likely recipients, so I continued on with my errands in the grocery store. I have this long-lived bold daydream that I find someone in need, take them into the grocery store, and buy them everything they need in one compassionate shopping splurge. I don't know that I have the social gumption to do it, but I remembered in the store the feeling of being younger and having a couple dollars to spend as wisely as I could on food. (A box of generic saltine crackers and a bottle of Ranch salad dressing or a six-pack of ramen noodles often constituted my only meals in one lean year.) In line, I used my "fun shopping" funds to buy two $25 grocery gift cards. I was really loaded for bear, I thought, just waiting for a needy recipient to fall into my lap.
Nowhere did I see any of the many homeless neighbors that I wheel past with an "I'm sorry" every day. Didn't the Universe realize how ready I was to give? I've got money burning a hole through my pocket, giftcards that don't make any sense if nobody steps forward to claim them. Feeling somewhat defeated, I wheeled my son's trike to the neighborhood playground.
A woman was there with her 18 month-old daughter. Her daughter toddled over to inspect my son's tricycle and the two of them started to play with a small ball I'd brought. It broke the ice and I shyly said "hello" and made a few laughing jokes about our children. She asked me, in heavily accented English, if I knew of any indoor playgrounds in the area. I didn't, really, but it got us talking and I discovered that she was new to our neighborhood and a stay-at-home mom like me. Our mutual shyness and language barrier made things at times awkward, but we spent the better part of an hour talking. When raindrops began to fall, she approached me apologetically with her candy pink cellphone.
"I had this idea. Maybe we exchange phone numbers or email and meet up?"
It made me uncomfortable, thinking how dissimilar we probably are. What was I getting myself into? Did I really want to let someone into the comfortable armor of my social shell? Would I be forced to tell her, and try to explain with our language barrier, that I was a witch? That I was aspiring to veganism? That I cosleep, still breastfeed, practice attachment parenting? All these things that I assume we don't share in common.
My stomach in a bundle of nerves, I realized that this was the giving I hadn't been prepared for. A giving of myself, one that feels uncomfortable enough to push my boundaries. I gave her my phone number with a hearty smile and promise of getting together sometime in the not-specified future.
It is up to me now.
I've given the first gift in this relationship and will have to give another when I call and invite her out with me and my son.
Yikes!
Gift cards and that twenty in my pocket would have been worlds easier.
Day Three
A year or more ago, an anonymous innovator chained one of those free newspaper boxes (the kind with the glass door that opens in the front, for things like real estate magazines) to a post outside a record store in my neighborhood. Inside, two wooden shelves had been installed. It was given a fresh coat of paint and some hand-stenciled messages.
"You Give, You Take, Everyone Reads"
It was a tiny weather-proof community book exchange.
It has gone through some tough times. Chicago can be a hard place for something unsecured to live. It is draped now in graffiti and random stickers and more often than not is filled with trash and discarded, half-full Starbucks cups. The book count hovers, at any given time, around four or five. When I visited yesterday, the books included four RoboTech novels and a battered Statistics textbook. Kind of dire for something so magical.
For my give of the day, I loaded my son and his tricycle and a cloth grocery bag full of books that I'd intended to trade for others on Paperbackswap.com. I'd intentionally picked an assortment--inspirational memoirs, healthy cookbook, picture books, middle grade, and young adult. I had something for just about anyone--from Shakespeare to Sesame Street. My son watched as I cleaned up the inside of the box, organized the books into an appealing way, and stood back to survey my work and set my intentions.
This neighborhood teeters on the razor's edge of poverty. To so many, books are a luxury. Let those who need them come and find something good here, see the love that exists in the community for them. Let access to the written word fire in them a belief in pure possibility, a way out of their troubles.
~~
The past three days, as part of my daily practice, I've been reading from a book called A Grateful Heart: Daily Blessings for the Evening Meal from Buddha to the Beatles. It is an edited collection of quotes and while they'd be worthwhile ways to bless a meal, they are primarily expressions of gratitude for life. I feel the connection between cultivating a grateful heart and feeling so abundant in my own life that I can share fearlessly and generously with those around me.
Today's reading included this Traditional Irish blessing,
May the blessing of light be on you, light without
and light within. May the blessed sunshine shine on
you and warm your heart till it glows like a great
peat fire, so that the stranger may come and warm
himself at it, and also a friend.
Isn't that the very essence of our 29Gifts family? I pray that today, your own sense of blessings fill you up, up, up until your heart's love cannot be contained but must radiate outwards to others.
Day Four
I checked the pocket of my jeans to make sure I still had that twenty dollar bill. In the front pocket of my purse, I'd stashed the two $25 grocery store giftcards I'd bought a couple days ago. Maybe today, I thought, I'd find someone to gift them to.
I buckled my son into our car and drove to a local strip mall to get last-minute supplies for Halloween. A few blocks from our destination, I saw him. The elderly man was standing with a small coffee cup in the median of a major intersection that leads, on one side, to the interstate. How often have I come down the off-ramp, locked my doors, and fiddled uncomfortably with the radio console to avoid eye contact with the men panhandling among the stopped cars? How often have I ignored the bolder ones who knock on the glass of my window to get me to look over? This time, as I pulled up to the light, I reached over to fish out the gift card and cash while straining my head to see him over the car between us. The man stepped clear of the car and I waved him over to my window. There was a moment of surprise on his face, wary surprise, as I rolled the window down.
His left eye was clouded with cataract and he was completely silent. I dropped the folded twenty into his empty cup and then handed the gift card over. "Get yourself some food, okay?" I said with concern. He looked down at the gift card blankly as he stepped back from the car. "Okay."
There was an anti-climactic quality to the entire exchange. Two days I'd been thinking about this give, looking for a homeless recipient, and I guess I'd expected something else. A "God Bless You!" or a happy jig, a double take at the denomination of the bill, something. I had no way of knowing how he'd use what I'd given him. He could buy crack cocaine with the cash and alcohol and cigarettes from the grocery store for all I know. I couldn't be sure that he'd use what I'd given as I'd intended any more than I could know that the local hooligans weren't going to just take a drunken piss inside the community book exchange box that I'd donated to the day before.
What if, I agonized as I drove on, these strangers I'm gifting so readily to aren't worthy of it?
We finished our shopping, my mind heavy with this worry of mine, and then hopped next door so that my son could play some games at the neighboring Chuck E. Cheese video arcade. Nap time arrived and I stood there with a cup of unused game tokens and a fistful of prize tickets that I could have taken home and saved for next time. I surveyed the room, though, and found a father chasing his three children around as they jumped up onto little moving car rides. He was one of the only people in the place without his own cup full of tokens. I approached him and handed the cup and tickets over. "It's naptime and we have to go. Would your children have use of these?"
"How much?"
"Oh, no...nothing! I'm giving them to you."
"Oh", he said as he returned his attention to his daughter skipping on a bit too far ahead, "okay".
What was the message in these lukewarm responses?
It seems, after an evening of contemplation and self-doubt, that I had too much attachment to the outcome. I'd daydreamed about the homeless man rushing off to the grocery store for hot coffee and hearty soup, for the children at Chuck E. Cheese to shriek and say, "Now we can play the games, too!" I wanted the movie scenes where the music swelled and I was told, in no uncertain terms, that I'd done the exact right thing at the exact right moment. I wanted to feel that I was a blessing to these people that I'm gifting to and I expected their responses to be...well...bigger and more dramatic.
It's an ego thing, in part, but it is also as if I expected, in a few seconds, for these strangers to demonstrate that they were deserving of compassion and help. I expected them to be socially eloquent and kind and effusively generous in their own way. This gift-giving challenges my worldview. My faith demands that I view every human, every creature, every bit of creation as part of the Divine. Now, faced with the grumpy and the quiet, the addicts and the criminals, I'm really testing the edges of that belief. Do I really believe that everyone deserves to be gifted with open generosity? Can I learn to trust that it is never wrong to be generous? Don't I believe that the Universe sorts everything out and directs blessings where they are most needed?
I hope so. Just because I can't always see the ripples spread outwards from my gift doesn't mean that it hasn't made an impact. I have to trust in the power of doing good in the world.
~~
From today's gratitude work, I found this adapted prayer from 1978's Week of Prayer for World Peace, featured in A Grateful Heart: Daily Blessings for the Evening Meal from Buddha to the Beatles. It seems to suggest, at least in part, that peaceful living requires me to see everyone as deserving and good...each worthy of being recipients of gifts from my heart.
"We pray for the power to be gentle; the strength to be forgiving; the patience to be understanding; and the endurance to accept the consequences to holding to what we believe to be right. May we put our trust in the power of good to overcome evil and the power of love to overcome hatred. We pray for the vision to see and the faith to believe in a world emancipated from violence, a new world where fear shall no longer lead men to commit injustice, nor selfishness make them bring suffering to others. Help us to devote our whole life and thought and energy to the task of making peace, praying always for the inspiration and the power to fulfill the destiny for which we were created".
Day Five
Samhain, the third harvest and witch's New Year, has arrived with days of rain and falling leaves. My husband has had a tough work week, so he was able to close up shop at 2pm yesterday and spend the afternoon on a date with me while our most trusted, beloved babysitter watched our two year-old.
We hadn't hired Stella for several months--we were too busy traveling. When I did call her to book her for Friday afternoon, though, she told me that she wanted to reduce her fee from $20 to $13/hour. I was bowled over by her generosity.
One of my girlfriends creates one-of-a-kind inspirational jewelry pendants for women made of sustainable bamboo and images and text clipped from heavily damaged fairy tale books. (Glamourkin's Website) In my collection, I have one pendant that I'd thought from the minute I met Stella suited her perfectly. She has star tattoos and wears a sterling star pendant all the time. I prettily boxed and wrapped this pendant and gave it to her as she was leaving....telling her how much we appreciated her care for our son.
The image is one of a starry illustrated night's sky. Overlaid across that spangled blue were the collaged words, "Her light shines brighter than stars".
I hope she loves it and feels the love we have for her in our family.
~~
While my husband and I were out on our date, sipping hot chai in the car and running errands before an early dinner, we pulled up to an intersection where a panhandler was standing in the rain wearing a makeshift trashbag tunic. I rummaged through my purse as quickly as I could, came up with a wad of about $14 and that last $25 grocery store gift card I'd purchased, and urged my husband to hand it over before our light turned green. My husband looked skeptically down at the cash and said, "All of it?".
"Yes, yes! All of it. Hurry!"
He rolled down his window and the man approached and took our offerings with warm thanks. With his barrel build, kind eyes, and rain-sparkled gray beard, he looked like Santa Claus.
It felt spectacular. Doubly so to share the experience with my husband, to be able to show him what I've been up to these past few days, the carefree giving, the fearless sharing.
Yes, all of it, indeed. I trust in the Universe to meet my needs. I am blessed with untapped abundance and my inner light, like yours, like Stella's, shines brighter than the stars themselves.
Day Six
For today's big give, I packaged fifty treat bags for neighborhood trick-or-treaters. Each cellophane bag, spangled with white stars, was filled with a packaged card game, a bouncy ball, a decorative pencil, and a few other little fun toys, as well as a glow-in-the-dark necklace to keep the kids safe from traffic after dark. We live in an impoverished urban area, where I knew the treat bags would be appreciated and put to immediate use. Making the day that much more special, I recruited my husband and our two year-old son, Graeme, to dress up and spread the holiday cheer with me. In five years living here, I've *never* had a single trick-or-treater come to my door, so we packed up our bags and went in search of them. The weather was absolutely freezing! We crossed paths with a few children and then, it seemed, word of us spread. We had people coming back for gifts with siblings and cousins, neighbors and friends, until we were completely mobbed and out of bags. We had to apologize once our supplies were exhausted and literally wade our way out of the crowd that had gathered. It was really overwhelming!
I think the best part, without question, was watching my son. He saw us giving things away and wanted to join in. Protested, in fact, when he'd run out of bags of his own to drop into the coffee cups, pillow cases, and shopping bags that were held out to him to fill. He wasn't tempted for one second by the bright, crinkly packaging. He was on a mission to give it all away and that warmed my heart and gave me another reason to be proud of him.
It was extraordinary to be able to feel like a part of community and to share the holiday celebration with those around me.
(I just wish I'd brought more!)
~~
I've found over the last six days that I'm in a mindset of giving that makes the act happen that much more naturally. There are countless small gifts I've shared this week that haven't made it to my daily blog here. I'm delighting in the experience of "Yes!". The check-out clerk asking me, once again, if I'd like to donate to Breast Cancer research. ("Yes!"). A friend commenting on a book I've just finished. ("I'll send it to you!") Dropping off anonymous Halloween surprises for the children who live next to us in our condominium. ("Why not? They'll be so surprised when they open their door!") Giving is already becoming my default state--it feels effortless, as if I've finally given myself permission to say something besides "No, I'm sorry I can't".
My husband paid me the highest compliment today. As we stripped out of our many warm layers after our trick-or-treating adventure, he said, "You know, I'm so proud of you. You're so generous and giving and I find that both admirable and inspiring. I want to be more like you."
It is hard sometimes for me as a stay-at-home-mom. It is an opportunity that I relish, but I don't always feel like an equal to my husband. He's brilliant and hardworking and single-handedly provides for all our needs. I sort of expect him to say, "I work and work and you're giving that money I've made to homeless guys!". To hear him say, not that it was okay, but specifically that he looked up to me and respected me for it?
It made my heart sing. Six days in and I'm feeling less invisible and realizing more the value I have outside of changing diapers and providing basic toddler care.
John Wesley said,
"Do all the good you can
By all the means you can
In all the ways you can
In all the places you can
To all the people you can
As long as ever you can."
My head's up and I'm looking for opportunities to do just that.
Day Seven
On day seven, I made a concerted effort to make time for both my husband and my toddler. I turned off my computer! I turned off my phone! I turned off the television and focused my time and attention entirely on my family. We had such a leisurely, pleasant day together--shopping for educational games and books at the thrift store, sitting together on the kitchen floor playing said games, and then attending a concert I'd bought tickets for of the preschool-geared Imagination Movers. My husband and I even found time to steal away together, adult time that we almost never seem to find these days.
Other obligations piled up, but it was well worth it to focus on my family, totally, for one day. I know it was a gift for all of us.
~~
"True greatness lies not always
In the winning of worldly fame,
Nor doing our best spurred on by the cheers
And plaudits that follow our name.
But he who can face with a cheery grace
The everyday of life,
With its petty things that rasp and sting,
Is a hero in the strife."
(Fannie Herron Wingate as quoted in A Grateful Heart: Daily Blessings for the Evening Meal from Buddha to the Beatles edited by M.J. Ryan.)
Day Eight
At Halloween, our family walked past the community book exchange box. I pointed it out to my husband. "That's where I left all those books a few days ago." He peeked inside at the tumble of books on the makeshift shelves, "Well, they're mostly gone now."
So yesterday, on day eight of my giving challenge, I returned to the converted newspaper box with another offering of books--mostly children's.
I live in the sort of neighborhood where our car windows are smashed at least once or twice a year so that someone can steal the spare change from our cupholder. Our newspaper is stolen from the front step more days than not, especially on the days when coupons come out. Having an unlocked box filled with books as a leave-one take-one honor system is a truly audacious, trusting act in an area like this. When I first visited it last week, I felt like I was lying a sort of wreath of respect, a bouquet of books, at the resting place of a potentially great idea. As I stood, staring in awe at the sight inside the box, I realized it may have been more like a book-shaped blood transfusion. There were signs of life at the community book exchange!
Most of my books were gone, replaced by about half as many books from other donors. There were some books that may have gone rogue from the library as well as some really quality books in the mix. I cleaned up and organized the contents, adding another thirty or so books of my own. I was shocked to find three books that seemed perfect for me--a book of homemade holiday decorations and crafts that would be perfect to do with my son, a Blue's Clues picture book he cheered for when he spotted, and a published diary of Laura Ingalls Wilder's that I, a lifelong fan, hadn't known existed. It felt like a smile from the neighborhood, the Universe at large, a wink of acknowledgment.
I'm not alone in this neighborhood. There are other readers, other dreamers, other generous optimists and we're communicating silently, lovingly through books.
~
One does not need to fast for days and meditate for hours at a time to experience the sense of sublime mystery which constantly envelops us. All one need do is notice intelligently, if even for a brief moment, a blossoming tree, a forest flooded with autumn colors, an infant smiling. ~Simon Greenberg
I woke up after five hours alive with an idea for my 29 Gifts experience. I would organize a food drive in our building for the month of November. I couldn't sleep another moment, I had to jump out of bed and brainstorm and print things and daydream about how I could get my neighbors as involved and motivated as I was. My soul was on fire and my brain was nonstop and I knew, without any doubt, that NaNo was definitely not for me this year. I could spend my free time writing a story I don't know how to tell yet or I could spend it, a blaze of excitement, doing charitable work that would make the world around me a better place. The passion I have for one above the other made it a complete no-brainer.
I signed up for 29gifts.org and have spent eight days consciously looking for ways to give gifts every day. I've been blogging my experiences on that community, but thought I'd post every week or so here for those interested but not keen on surfing off LiveJournal to keep up.
Day One
I'd found, and loved, the concept of the 29 Gifts Challenge months ago. I never joined, perhaps in part because as a rule, I give a lot of gifts. As a witch, my worldview revolves around this idea that energy sent out into the world at large will come back to me, that negativity breeds negativity and that generosity is always rewarded. I regularly deliver bags and bags of good-condition items to charity, sponsor needy families in my neighborhood, drop food off for food pantries, send money for impoverished children abroad, struggling start-up businesses, and charities that capture my heart. I think, I'm a pretty giving person!
This year, for my birthday, I received a $25 gift card to Barnes & Noble. I wasn't sure what to buy with it, but I had the luxury of an evening browsing without my toddler in tow. There, within sight of the vegan cookbooks I was aiming for, was Cami's book. It was just my sort of thing! There was no question--it was the perfect birthday present for myself.
Finishing the book in tears, I recognized that it would be a powerful discipline to look for ways to be consistently gifting the world with my presence. As a stay-at-home mom without any local friends or family, I don't always feel connected to my community. As a naturally solitary person, I can be shy or resistant to the idea of inviting people over, making new friends, committing myself to accomplishing much more than caring for my son.
My first gift felt like a breakthrough. I discarded a few ideas before I came up with one that hurt a little, stretched me past my comfort level, and ultimately felt like a bigger gift.
I had my copy of Cami's book. Passing that along to someone else--that would be a wonderful first gift. I thought of my Paperbackswap.com account. Surely there'd be a hefty waiting list for a new book like this. I could offer my book there to the next person on that list! It felt impersonal and also ungifty--I'd receive credit for that book, could order another book in its place.
I thought through my friends and family and who might read and appreciate a book like this.
I knew who I didn't want to send it to--and that's what I did. My father, socially unpleasant to begin with, has spent his entire life focused solely on his own illnesses. My first memories of our interactions, as a little girl, include him telling me that he couldn't pick me up because I'd hurt his neck. A phone conversation with him becomes a litany of symptoms, attempted treatments, new prescriptions. It's like, he doesn't even want to know who I am. Who needs this book more than him, I thought, and what better gift than to reach out to someone that I don't want to have access to my safe, loving world? I knew it was the right thing to do. It was giving of myself--a gift of compassion and outreach.
I wrapped the book in vibrant red wrapping paper and attached a note.
"I know, with your illnesses, that you probably feel the same sense of scarcity that the author suffered in the beginning", I wrote, urging him to read and consider what his impact could be on the world if he focused outward even on the days where he's tempted to stay in bed, depressed, and count the ceiling tiles. I offered the challenge in a supportive, encouraging way. He'll find the package as a surprise, I rarely send anything his way. What a relief--to give something I thought I couldn't and to find that it leaves me feeling emotionally free and stable. His reaction doesn't matter--I've given in a spirit of compassion.
My long-distant's brother's birthday fell on my day one, too. I hadn't gotten him anything in the rush of our recent travels. I wasn't going to call, but I thought of how secretive and silent I must appear to my family. I don't reveal much of myself to them. So I called him, sang, and chatted for awhile. It was so freeing, so pleasant and I know it gave him unexpected pleasure to hear from me.
This gift-giving venture is going to be so much more than anonymous sentiment. It'll have to include ways for me to learn to give others access to me and my life, to get to know me, to have the chance to share my life with others.
Day Two
I spent most of the rainy, chilly day inside. I'd thought of taking my son to Lincoln Park Zoo to give him some time to run around outside, but naptime and his contentment to stay inside with his toys and PBS television lulled me into inaction, book reading and web-surfing. By three pm, with only a couple hours of daylight left, I pushed myself out the door in search of opportunities to give.
I dropped off a box of gifts at the shipping center, part of a spiritual mail swap that I signed up for that a friend was organizing. It didn't feel like a real give, frankly, since it was something that I'd planned to get out this week and had been rewarded already with a reciprocal package of my own.
Before leaving the house, I'd tucked a twenty dollar bill into my jeans pocket. Our neighborhood has a number of homeless people. Because of safety concerns, I rarely give money to those camped outside our grocery store or post office, sleeping in the bus shelters. It seems too dangerous to open my purse and fish around inside. This way, I figured, I'd be prepared to give. I pushed my son's tricycle down the street and realized something important--I was looking for gifting opportunities and it kept my head up and my gaze outward. I was paying more attention to the people around me and probably looked more approachable, too. What a difference, even in posture, to be watching the horizon instead of watching my footing.
I didn't cross paths with any likely recipients, so I continued on with my errands in the grocery store. I have this long-lived bold daydream that I find someone in need, take them into the grocery store, and buy them everything they need in one compassionate shopping splurge. I don't know that I have the social gumption to do it, but I remembered in the store the feeling of being younger and having a couple dollars to spend as wisely as I could on food. (A box of generic saltine crackers and a bottle of Ranch salad dressing or a six-pack of ramen noodles often constituted my only meals in one lean year.) In line, I used my "fun shopping" funds to buy two $25 grocery gift cards. I was really loaded for bear, I thought, just waiting for a needy recipient to fall into my lap.
Nowhere did I see any of the many homeless neighbors that I wheel past with an "I'm sorry" every day. Didn't the Universe realize how ready I was to give? I've got money burning a hole through my pocket, giftcards that don't make any sense if nobody steps forward to claim them. Feeling somewhat defeated, I wheeled my son's trike to the neighborhood playground.
A woman was there with her 18 month-old daughter. Her daughter toddled over to inspect my son's tricycle and the two of them started to play with a small ball I'd brought. It broke the ice and I shyly said "hello" and made a few laughing jokes about our children. She asked me, in heavily accented English, if I knew of any indoor playgrounds in the area. I didn't, really, but it got us talking and I discovered that she was new to our neighborhood and a stay-at-home mom like me. Our mutual shyness and language barrier made things at times awkward, but we spent the better part of an hour talking. When raindrops began to fall, she approached me apologetically with her candy pink cellphone.
"I had this idea. Maybe we exchange phone numbers or email and meet up?"
It made me uncomfortable, thinking how dissimilar we probably are. What was I getting myself into? Did I really want to let someone into the comfortable armor of my social shell? Would I be forced to tell her, and try to explain with our language barrier, that I was a witch? That I was aspiring to veganism? That I cosleep, still breastfeed, practice attachment parenting? All these things that I assume we don't share in common.
My stomach in a bundle of nerves, I realized that this was the giving I hadn't been prepared for. A giving of myself, one that feels uncomfortable enough to push my boundaries. I gave her my phone number with a hearty smile and promise of getting together sometime in the not-specified future.
It is up to me now.
I've given the first gift in this relationship and will have to give another when I call and invite her out with me and my son.
Yikes!
Gift cards and that twenty in my pocket would have been worlds easier.
Day Three
A year or more ago, an anonymous innovator chained one of those free newspaper boxes (the kind with the glass door that opens in the front, for things like real estate magazines) to a post outside a record store in my neighborhood. Inside, two wooden shelves had been installed. It was given a fresh coat of paint and some hand-stenciled messages.
"You Give, You Take, Everyone Reads"
It was a tiny weather-proof community book exchange.
It has gone through some tough times. Chicago can be a hard place for something unsecured to live. It is draped now in graffiti and random stickers and more often than not is filled with trash and discarded, half-full Starbucks cups. The book count hovers, at any given time, around four or five. When I visited yesterday, the books included four RoboTech novels and a battered Statistics textbook. Kind of dire for something so magical.
For my give of the day, I loaded my son and his tricycle and a cloth grocery bag full of books that I'd intended to trade for others on Paperbackswap.com. I'd intentionally picked an assortment--inspirational memoirs, healthy cookbook, picture books, middle grade, and young adult. I had something for just about anyone--from Shakespeare to Sesame Street. My son watched as I cleaned up the inside of the box, organized the books into an appealing way, and stood back to survey my work and set my intentions.
This neighborhood teeters on the razor's edge of poverty. To so many, books are a luxury. Let those who need them come and find something good here, see the love that exists in the community for them. Let access to the written word fire in them a belief in pure possibility, a way out of their troubles.
~~
The past three days, as part of my daily practice, I've been reading from a book called A Grateful Heart: Daily Blessings for the Evening Meal from Buddha to the Beatles. It is an edited collection of quotes and while they'd be worthwhile ways to bless a meal, they are primarily expressions of gratitude for life. I feel the connection between cultivating a grateful heart and feeling so abundant in my own life that I can share fearlessly and generously with those around me.
Today's reading included this Traditional Irish blessing,
May the blessing of light be on you, light without
and light within. May the blessed sunshine shine on
you and warm your heart till it glows like a great
peat fire, so that the stranger may come and warm
himself at it, and also a friend.
Isn't that the very essence of our 29Gifts family? I pray that today, your own sense of blessings fill you up, up, up until your heart's love cannot be contained but must radiate outwards to others.
Day Four
I checked the pocket of my jeans to make sure I still had that twenty dollar bill. In the front pocket of my purse, I'd stashed the two $25 grocery store giftcards I'd bought a couple days ago. Maybe today, I thought, I'd find someone to gift them to.
I buckled my son into our car and drove to a local strip mall to get last-minute supplies for Halloween. A few blocks from our destination, I saw him. The elderly man was standing with a small coffee cup in the median of a major intersection that leads, on one side, to the interstate. How often have I come down the off-ramp, locked my doors, and fiddled uncomfortably with the radio console to avoid eye contact with the men panhandling among the stopped cars? How often have I ignored the bolder ones who knock on the glass of my window to get me to look over? This time, as I pulled up to the light, I reached over to fish out the gift card and cash while straining my head to see him over the car between us. The man stepped clear of the car and I waved him over to my window. There was a moment of surprise on his face, wary surprise, as I rolled the window down.
His left eye was clouded with cataract and he was completely silent. I dropped the folded twenty into his empty cup and then handed the gift card over. "Get yourself some food, okay?" I said with concern. He looked down at the gift card blankly as he stepped back from the car. "Okay."
There was an anti-climactic quality to the entire exchange. Two days I'd been thinking about this give, looking for a homeless recipient, and I guess I'd expected something else. A "God Bless You!" or a happy jig, a double take at the denomination of the bill, something. I had no way of knowing how he'd use what I'd given him. He could buy crack cocaine with the cash and alcohol and cigarettes from the grocery store for all I know. I couldn't be sure that he'd use what I'd given as I'd intended any more than I could know that the local hooligans weren't going to just take a drunken piss inside the community book exchange box that I'd donated to the day before.
What if, I agonized as I drove on, these strangers I'm gifting so readily to aren't worthy of it?
We finished our shopping, my mind heavy with this worry of mine, and then hopped next door so that my son could play some games at the neighboring Chuck E. Cheese video arcade. Nap time arrived and I stood there with a cup of unused game tokens and a fistful of prize tickets that I could have taken home and saved for next time. I surveyed the room, though, and found a father chasing his three children around as they jumped up onto little moving car rides. He was one of the only people in the place without his own cup full of tokens. I approached him and handed the cup and tickets over. "It's naptime and we have to go. Would your children have use of these?"
"How much?"
"Oh, no...nothing! I'm giving them to you."
"Oh", he said as he returned his attention to his daughter skipping on a bit too far ahead, "okay".
What was the message in these lukewarm responses?
It seems, after an evening of contemplation and self-doubt, that I had too much attachment to the outcome. I'd daydreamed about the homeless man rushing off to the grocery store for hot coffee and hearty soup, for the children at Chuck E. Cheese to shriek and say, "Now we can play the games, too!" I wanted the movie scenes where the music swelled and I was told, in no uncertain terms, that I'd done the exact right thing at the exact right moment. I wanted to feel that I was a blessing to these people that I'm gifting to and I expected their responses to be...well...bigger and more dramatic.
It's an ego thing, in part, but it is also as if I expected, in a few seconds, for these strangers to demonstrate that they were deserving of compassion and help. I expected them to be socially eloquent and kind and effusively generous in their own way. This gift-giving challenges my worldview. My faith demands that I view every human, every creature, every bit of creation as part of the Divine. Now, faced with the grumpy and the quiet, the addicts and the criminals, I'm really testing the edges of that belief. Do I really believe that everyone deserves to be gifted with open generosity? Can I learn to trust that it is never wrong to be generous? Don't I believe that the Universe sorts everything out and directs blessings where they are most needed?
I hope so. Just because I can't always see the ripples spread outwards from my gift doesn't mean that it hasn't made an impact. I have to trust in the power of doing good in the world.
~~
From today's gratitude work, I found this adapted prayer from 1978's Week of Prayer for World Peace, featured in A Grateful Heart: Daily Blessings for the Evening Meal from Buddha to the Beatles. It seems to suggest, at least in part, that peaceful living requires me to see everyone as deserving and good...each worthy of being recipients of gifts from my heart.
"We pray for the power to be gentle; the strength to be forgiving; the patience to be understanding; and the endurance to accept the consequences to holding to what we believe to be right. May we put our trust in the power of good to overcome evil and the power of love to overcome hatred. We pray for the vision to see and the faith to believe in a world emancipated from violence, a new world where fear shall no longer lead men to commit injustice, nor selfishness make them bring suffering to others. Help us to devote our whole life and thought and energy to the task of making peace, praying always for the inspiration and the power to fulfill the destiny for which we were created".
Day Five
Samhain, the third harvest and witch's New Year, has arrived with days of rain and falling leaves. My husband has had a tough work week, so he was able to close up shop at 2pm yesterday and spend the afternoon on a date with me while our most trusted, beloved babysitter watched our two year-old.
We hadn't hired Stella for several months--we were too busy traveling. When I did call her to book her for Friday afternoon, though, she told me that she wanted to reduce her fee from $20 to $13/hour. I was bowled over by her generosity.
One of my girlfriends creates one-of-a-kind inspirational jewelry pendants for women made of sustainable bamboo and images and text clipped from heavily damaged fairy tale books. (Glamourkin's Website) In my collection, I have one pendant that I'd thought from the minute I met Stella suited her perfectly. She has star tattoos and wears a sterling star pendant all the time. I prettily boxed and wrapped this pendant and gave it to her as she was leaving....telling her how much we appreciated her care for our son.
The image is one of a starry illustrated night's sky. Overlaid across that spangled blue were the collaged words, "Her light shines brighter than stars".
I hope she loves it and feels the love we have for her in our family.
~~
While my husband and I were out on our date, sipping hot chai in the car and running errands before an early dinner, we pulled up to an intersection where a panhandler was standing in the rain wearing a makeshift trashbag tunic. I rummaged through my purse as quickly as I could, came up with a wad of about $14 and that last $25 grocery store gift card I'd purchased, and urged my husband to hand it over before our light turned green. My husband looked skeptically down at the cash and said, "All of it?".
"Yes, yes! All of it. Hurry!"
He rolled down his window and the man approached and took our offerings with warm thanks. With his barrel build, kind eyes, and rain-sparkled gray beard, he looked like Santa Claus.
It felt spectacular. Doubly so to share the experience with my husband, to be able to show him what I've been up to these past few days, the carefree giving, the fearless sharing.
Yes, all of it, indeed. I trust in the Universe to meet my needs. I am blessed with untapped abundance and my inner light, like yours, like Stella's, shines brighter than the stars themselves.
Day Six
For today's big give, I packaged fifty treat bags for neighborhood trick-or-treaters. Each cellophane bag, spangled with white stars, was filled with a packaged card game, a bouncy ball, a decorative pencil, and a few other little fun toys, as well as a glow-in-the-dark necklace to keep the kids safe from traffic after dark. We live in an impoverished urban area, where I knew the treat bags would be appreciated and put to immediate use. Making the day that much more special, I recruited my husband and our two year-old son, Graeme, to dress up and spread the holiday cheer with me. In five years living here, I've *never* had a single trick-or-treater come to my door, so we packed up our bags and went in search of them. The weather was absolutely freezing! We crossed paths with a few children and then, it seemed, word of us spread. We had people coming back for gifts with siblings and cousins, neighbors and friends, until we were completely mobbed and out of bags. We had to apologize once our supplies were exhausted and literally wade our way out of the crowd that had gathered. It was really overwhelming!
I think the best part, without question, was watching my son. He saw us giving things away and wanted to join in. Protested, in fact, when he'd run out of bags of his own to drop into the coffee cups, pillow cases, and shopping bags that were held out to him to fill. He wasn't tempted for one second by the bright, crinkly packaging. He was on a mission to give it all away and that warmed my heart and gave me another reason to be proud of him.
It was extraordinary to be able to feel like a part of community and to share the holiday celebration with those around me.
(I just wish I'd brought more!)
~~
I've found over the last six days that I'm in a mindset of giving that makes the act happen that much more naturally. There are countless small gifts I've shared this week that haven't made it to my daily blog here. I'm delighting in the experience of "Yes!". The check-out clerk asking me, once again, if I'd like to donate to Breast Cancer research. ("Yes!"). A friend commenting on a book I've just finished. ("I'll send it to you!") Dropping off anonymous Halloween surprises for the children who live next to us in our condominium. ("Why not? They'll be so surprised when they open their door!") Giving is already becoming my default state--it feels effortless, as if I've finally given myself permission to say something besides "No, I'm sorry I can't".
My husband paid me the highest compliment today. As we stripped out of our many warm layers after our trick-or-treating adventure, he said, "You know, I'm so proud of you. You're so generous and giving and I find that both admirable and inspiring. I want to be more like you."
It is hard sometimes for me as a stay-at-home-mom. It is an opportunity that I relish, but I don't always feel like an equal to my husband. He's brilliant and hardworking and single-handedly provides for all our needs. I sort of expect him to say, "I work and work and you're giving that money I've made to homeless guys!". To hear him say, not that it was okay, but specifically that he looked up to me and respected me for it?
It made my heart sing. Six days in and I'm feeling less invisible and realizing more the value I have outside of changing diapers and providing basic toddler care.
John Wesley said,
"Do all the good you can
By all the means you can
In all the ways you can
In all the places you can
To all the people you can
As long as ever you can."
My head's up and I'm looking for opportunities to do just that.
Day Seven
On day seven, I made a concerted effort to make time for both my husband and my toddler. I turned off my computer! I turned off my phone! I turned off the television and focused my time and attention entirely on my family. We had such a leisurely, pleasant day together--shopping for educational games and books at the thrift store, sitting together on the kitchen floor playing said games, and then attending a concert I'd bought tickets for of the preschool-geared Imagination Movers. My husband and I even found time to steal away together, adult time that we almost never seem to find these days.
Other obligations piled up, but it was well worth it to focus on my family, totally, for one day. I know it was a gift for all of us.
~~
"True greatness lies not always
In the winning of worldly fame,
Nor doing our best spurred on by the cheers
And plaudits that follow our name.
But he who can face with a cheery grace
The everyday of life,
With its petty things that rasp and sting,
Is a hero in the strife."
(Fannie Herron Wingate as quoted in A Grateful Heart: Daily Blessings for the Evening Meal from Buddha to the Beatles edited by M.J. Ryan.)
Day Eight
At Halloween, our family walked past the community book exchange box. I pointed it out to my husband. "That's where I left all those books a few days ago." He peeked inside at the tumble of books on the makeshift shelves, "Well, they're mostly gone now."
So yesterday, on day eight of my giving challenge, I returned to the converted newspaper box with another offering of books--mostly children's.
I live in the sort of neighborhood where our car windows are smashed at least once or twice a year so that someone can steal the spare change from our cupholder. Our newspaper is stolen from the front step more days than not, especially on the days when coupons come out. Having an unlocked box filled with books as a leave-one take-one honor system is a truly audacious, trusting act in an area like this. When I first visited it last week, I felt like I was lying a sort of wreath of respect, a bouquet of books, at the resting place of a potentially great idea. As I stood, staring in awe at the sight inside the box, I realized it may have been more like a book-shaped blood transfusion. There were signs of life at the community book exchange!
Most of my books were gone, replaced by about half as many books from other donors. There were some books that may have gone rogue from the library as well as some really quality books in the mix. I cleaned up and organized the contents, adding another thirty or so books of my own. I was shocked to find three books that seemed perfect for me--a book of homemade holiday decorations and crafts that would be perfect to do with my son, a Blue's Clues picture book he cheered for when he spotted, and a published diary of Laura Ingalls Wilder's that I, a lifelong fan, hadn't known existed. It felt like a smile from the neighborhood, the Universe at large, a wink of acknowledgment.
I'm not alone in this neighborhood. There are other readers, other dreamers, other generous optimists and we're communicating silently, lovingly through books.
~
One does not need to fast for days and meditate for hours at a time to experience the sense of sublime mystery which constantly envelops us. All one need do is notice intelligently, if even for a brief moment, a blossoming tree, a forest flooded with autumn colors, an infant smiling. ~Simon Greenberg
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Date: 2009-11-04 01:40 pm (UTC)I'd love to read about your experiences with it. :)