The Offline Mind

I don’t know where I truly learned it from, although I originally attributed the gracious wisdom to my Persian father and my categorically Mediterranean mother…but having now known them in later life, I don’t think this was their strong suit. Perhaps they picked up flowers once or twice, to impress, but my dad showed up recently after I gave birth to my third child on a Thursday at 5pm and said “sorry I didn’t bring flowers, everything was closed…”. And my mom? When she was alive, God rest her soul, she almost certainly considered her presence gift enough. As a result, I believe this wisdom may have been my own all along.

Don’t come empty-handed. Never, if you can help it. Dinner party? Pot luck? Birthday? New baby? Don’t come empty handed. Here’s a small silly list of things you can take instead of your own thoughtlessness:

1. Flowers. Make sure the buds are tight. Go to a florist if you’re unsure. Don’t buy anyone full-blown roses, unless you dislike them. Choose flowers according to their Victorian era meanings (look it up) or just choose them according to which flowers remind you most of the intended recipient. Wild child? Protea and Hyperion, spider mums if you’re nasty. Elegant friend? Yellow roses. Peonies. Favourite aunt? Daisies, and plenty. Dinner party? Lisianthus set in eucalyptus is always well-recieved.

2. Food stuffs. Chocolates, cheese, cured meats, wine, even homemade wine or pasta sauce, high-quality jams, crackers, dried fruits, nuts, flatbreads, and anything else you yourself have tried and like or know the recipient likes. It may or may not be opened and enjoyed in your presence. Both outcomes are equally acceptable.

3. A book. A cookbook, a novel they would enjoy, or a slim book of poems that remind you of them. Earmark the pages you know they would love. Tell them you did so. Ask when you see them next.

4. Crafts. Homemade things. Candles, wreaths or pressed flowers, lotions or tinctures.

5. A note. It costs nothing but time. Be sincere. It can be a list, a haiku, a sestina, a phoney obituary of a sworn mutual enemy. You get the picture. Draw a doodle at the bottom of the page. Why does nobody doodle anymore?

Now I called this post “Never Come Empty Handed, and Other Life Lessons” because there was a nice ring to it, but I do feel suddenly obliged to offer one other life lesson before I sign off, despite coming here unequipped. Hmm.

Here’s one: Let it go. Angry? Let it go. Relax your face. Picture the defendant as a baby, a little milk spilling out the side of their baby mouth, because they did a wittle burpy. Now picture yourself dabbing it dry for them. Still mad? Thought so.

Sad? Let it go. I’m not saying ignore it, but stop putting walls around it, trying to dam it in. Let it grow, let it flow. Fill up with your own sorrow and let it lift above your head in overflow and drench your skin and spill out over your life and you focus instead on being okay with everything it changes.

And this one is the hardest to write: Happy? Let it go. It doesn’t belong to you. Your joy is not promised for keeps, but instead deposits itself like a token in the heart of the universe, and comes back to us all as sunlight, the morning, a hummingbird observing a flower, the flower’s seed snuggling deep into the sleepy soil. It finally makes its way back up through the earth to you, as a slow smile buried deep in a quiet mind. As a memory, I mean. But the thing about happiness is it was never yours.

Anyway, don’t show up empty-handed. Especially when you ask “what can I bring” and they say “just yourself!”