September 07, 2005
The Gift
As I emerged from the bathroom to prepare for work, Chris came through the kitchen with a small, cardboard box in his hand and a an excited smile on his face.
"It's here!"
"Oh! Open it!"
He pulled the end of the box open and peered inside. His smile widened when he saw all the little bits of wrapped affection, and he looked at me and smiled so very happily.
"I wonder who's is who's...", he said quietly, scanning about the interior from the open end.
"We'll know." And with that, the first items were pulled from its cramped interior.
A box of Sees chocolates bearing my name, and a duplicate wrapped in blue for Anna. I smiled widely and felt warm at the thought that little Anna had been included. She will be so pleased to have gotten a gift.
Two CDs, one each labeled for Chris and I. Within moments I had it in the drive to protect it and to be ready to load it into my drives and enjoy it as soon as I return from work tonight. I mused its mysteries as I set it into the tray of the drive and wished I could have listened to it then and there.
A small packet of pink tissue proclaimed itself to be mine, and it weighed heavy and warm in my hand, warm merely from the sun outside yet also as warm as though it had come directly from your sweet hand.
I looked up to see Chris looking at the bag of candy Legos, and laughed at his reaction, one of curious surprise and amused pleasure. I giggled at his response, and he chuckled and smiled broadly in return.
I looked at the pink papered secret in my hand and daintily opened it. It tingled and chimed softly, and a strand of silver bells slipped, serpentine, into the palm of my hand. I palmed the pink tissue with its remaining item, and held the ends of the strand between the fingertips of both hands, feeling it, deceptively heavy for such a delicate look, and hearing it, gently tinkling as it's myriad of small bells.
A quick whoop interrupted my intimate reverie, and I looked up to see Chris pulling a heavy black dragon from the confines of a black plastic bag. He wasted no time encircling his neck with its stout chain, and kept repeating the same almost unintelligible phrase of pleasure over and over.
I now looked down at the item still tucked into it's fragile wrap and quietly slipped it out into my hand. Weighty, so very warm, it settled solidly into the palm of my hand. Hand, blessing, eye of protection and warding, roses of Sharon, prayer on the back, ancient symbols... once, long ago, I had worn this same symbol. It was a feeling of familiar strength, and it set so warm in my palm that if I had closed my eyes it would have been your hand there in its place.
Chris now held up the shiny white box that remained and rattled it.
"What's this?" As though I knew.
"Well, open it."
Matches lined up head to head in casual ranks within the traylike box, and Chris delighted at them before dashing off to his bedroom to peer in the mirror at the dragon newly landed about his neck.
I gathered up the tinkling delight and took it with me to the bathroom. My first thought was that I would have to wear it around a wrist as that was where most anklets ended up, so I slipped it over my arm and caught it underneath, hook and loop. When I lowered my arm, it almost slipped off. So tentatively raised my naked foot to the edge of the white tub and slowly wrapped the shiny delicacy around it...
I smiled a great smile and even a small giggle broke through as I looked at the jingly circlet that fit, albeit with little extra room, around my ankle. It sang a hundred tiny songs as I walked across the bedroom, and I was loath to remove it for work...
So now I sit here at my desk with a secret smile and your beautiful gift, silent and obvious only to me, held securely within the confines of a sock under the leg of my slacks.
And in my mind's eye I imagine you padding about your bedroom to the soft tinkling songs of it's mate.
And we both thank you so very much for being thought of so.