What I Am Giving This Year

My personal holiday wish list this year:

• A fresh journal
• A full bird-feeder and a few brilliant cardinals
• Good coffee
• Quiet, in which to settle myself with God and my fellow citizens
• Words of wisdom on the subject of hope
• A path forward

What I will be giving, with a brief explanation.

We dwell in a time that seems short on the valuable, usable sort of memory.  Formative memory.  The kind of memory that I grew up with (and perhaps you did too), in which stories were told of great-grandparents and others who sacrificed so that their children would have better lives.  Tired, overworked people who gave up instant gratification –- sometimes, even food — so that their grandchildren would have a small nest egg with which to buy books, go to school, start their own adult journeys.

I remember vividly how important beauty was to my grandparents and parents – simple beauty, the kind that could be nudged from a rose bush, or a colored pencil, or a pair of knitting needles.  Hand-made, human-scaled beauty.

Crayons, paper, water colors, yarn, a few potted plants.  A well-sung song, a a hymn.

The beauty that we can make is the bedrock of a certain kind of hope, and an affirmation of our humanity – whether we create in solitude at the kitchen table after the family has left the house for the day, or with others in front of a piano or campfire or church service.  It reminds us that true value dwells beyond wealth and power and greed.

This holiday I will be giving:

The Backyard Bird Chronicles, by Amy Tan (her own pencil drawings and writings, a project she undertook in the wake of virulent anti-Asian racism.)

A Year of Last Things, by Michael Ondaatje (a new poetry collection by a one-time immigrant, and one of the great living writers in English today.)

Woven, by Jeremy Fry, a exhibition book featuring the astonishing basketry of a seventh-generation Wabanaki who transformed a life of despair and drugs to becoming the world’s foremost artisan in basket-weaving, reviving a languishing indigenous tradition and working to honor an endangered species of tree.  A breathtaking book.

Dear ones, whether you knit or draw or make your own cards, arrange pine cones with a special flair on your bookshelf, or bake killer cookies, I ask you to please remember the beauty that you alone can offer the world.  We need you, every one of you — your special presence among us.  May your holiday season be filled with love, harmony and inspiration!

With love,

Kathleen

[Photo by Erica Marsland Huynh on Unsplash]