Unearthing the Gifts

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Not the Spiritual Kind

This morning, we'll go to my mom's in Stamford and meet my sisters and their families for lunch and to give them the gifts we brought from India. That means that we need to unpack!

I'm doing this while Pat showers because I've an urge to blog and because it feels difficult to get started with unpacking.

The spiritual gift of today will be seeing them again for the first time in half a year, but I'm preoccupied with not forgetting the material items we bought for all of them.

Yesterday

Blogged; Pat and I went downtown to the car dealer; it didn't have the car I was looking for, though I sent my specs. to the dealer three weeks ago by e-mail to give it time to locate the one I wanted; I was frustrated and said so firmly, and they'll try to accommodate me by Wednesday, but I'll believe it when I see it....

I'm reminded that there were moments in India, where service people would promise to call us back and then not do so or make other false commitments and I'd find myself thinking viscerally, Why do they have to lie to me systematically?

And then yesterday, twice I was reminded that that's how service people can be, unfortunately, the world over, since the car dealer had written back to me, "I have the very car...." and then didn't, and because our phone provider had promised to restore our service by the 22nd and then when Pat called yesterday morning to say it still wasn't working, she got, "I apologize. It will be ready in an hour."

You can guess that when we came back hours later it still was not restored. This kvetching/complaining, in India, was called "cribbing" or "winge-ing."

We did, though, enjoy ourselves a bit, too, having lunch at Raymond's on Church Street, having a quick look at the Montclair Book Center and then spontaneously deciding to see a movie and picking "Atonement," since it was the movie that was playing next; we had wanted to see the one with Laura Linney and Phillip Seymour Hoffman, since they're among our favorite actors, but it wasn't for another hour. We loved it. Very good, memorable. Vanessa Redgrave was amazing.

In the evening, we fell asleep, watching TV, and then forced ourselves to stay up till 9:30 pm, though I had a dream while in the bathroom prior to getting into bed(!)

The Spiritual Kind

Today, I have an opportunity to enjoy more than just the material gift-giving. I get to see the people -- other than Pat -- who mean more to me than anyone, including the family member, who recently had the cancer removed and who was just given a clean bill of health.

Our nephews and niece will be taller and that will unnerve me, and I don't know how to predict anyone else's changes. I'm so grateful to have a family that's so excited to see us. It's really a big gift -- not to long for familial love, which I know some people do. How weird for familial love to be unrequited for some, but it is. Thank God, not in our case.