And so to Christmas.
I heard an astounding statistic last night. In the UK alone, frantic last-minute Christmas shoppers were spending 951,000 pounds per minute. PER MINUTE! Worldwide, that's billions and billions of gifts - most often for people who have more than enough. Then, this morning, an email from ebay dropped into my box, offering an easy facility to sell your unwanted gifts - in their original, unopened wrappers. That's almost as awful as the banks offering a no interest credit card for six months to cover Christmas spending.
This year, because I'm Taking Off Into The UnKnown with NoKnown Return Date, I don't have use for anything of value or weight, and my most precious gifts have been love and laughter; which I have received by the bushel over these past months, from customers who have become friends, and friends who have become family.
So I got to thinking about gifts, and the ones that really count. Over the years I've received some truly appropriate and thoughtful gifts, given by those who have listened to who I am and what blows my hair back. For a big birthday ending in an O, I insisted on a skydive from my conservative daughter who thought I was mad. This was the most terrifying thing, in a life of terrifying things, I have ever done; I plunged through dense white freezing cloud with a man I didn't know strapped to my back - he would have had a cushioned landing - not I. I hated every second, but I lived to tell the tale, so anything pales in comparison.
This year, when I was drowning in my Bad Patch, my number one handsome son gave me a series of books with titles like Where Will You Be In Five Year's Time, and Believe, and the Persistence of Yellow, and Moxi. These life-gifts would arrive appropriately, and they enabled me to climb out of that swamp when I realised I wasn't Alone Down There.
A lover once gave me a ladder - a wonderful gift considering I'm five foot and a pebble, and that I can't see the top of the fridge. Another gave me an electric drill, probably to stop things falling on my head. Marvellous books, lovely perfumes. Fabulous diamonds, thankyou, I mean it. But nobody has ever given me a subscription to National Geographic. Hello, anyone LISTENING out there?
When my mother died, and I'd done the whole back and forth and back and forth and back and forth from Africa to Australia to Africa and then the whole cremation and eulogy and weeping and wailing and carrying-on thing, and the clearing out of Secret Revealing Letters, and appropriating her Environ skin creams and throwing out her leopard skin g-strings and various "what the +#@%" is this late seventies missile toy doing in her bed thing? her partner gave me a solid gold medal for bravery he had received on behalf of his sister. (Who was the one whose heart had been used in the first transplant ever) That's a pretty impressive gift, but we both knew the bravery honour had in a small way been passed onto me.
Right at the top of the list of insightful gifts, is from Departed David. He'd been bushwalking and found a lovely quill-type feather. He'd framed it with double mounts, and trailed a bit of black ink, and inscribed at the bottom "The Scribe Will Scribble". This was a wonderful injunction considering I'd been complaining for years that I needed to Start Writing Again. This is the last thing I'm packing; the first to go up when next I unpack.
Over the years, I've received the oddest gifts. A shower cap. Another shower cap. Bath towels in colours that would stain all my neutrals. A bathroom scale. A handbag from a lover who'd given an identical one to his wife. A Datsun patrol Diesel 4x4 from the Husband when I was 8 months pregnant and couldn't reach the first step. A bottle of perfume in the glovebox of the Porsche he'd bought for himself. (This is for me, dear, yours is in the glovebox!) I'm a size 10 - but I once unwrapped underwear that would fit two fat ladies on a motorcyle on a food tour around Ireland - all four legs and two bums and a pavlova of cellulite into that one pair of black and pink bloomers. And the worst? David tried to organise one of my fantasies into reality. He was furious I'd found out, and wanted me to recoup his deposit when I refused to go ahead. Yep, that's another story left for much later in this expose, when I'll have to be really drunk and my children will have disowned me anyway because I'll be living with some Berbers under a sheltering sky.
The last few weeks in the shop have been frantic. I hope to visit Mali, source of trade beads, and stop by Muscat in Oman to see the silver, and Morocco, source of amber and Berber jewelery, and Nepal, source of Tibetan and Naga treasures. I've been able, for the first time ever, to part with some of the antiquities and some treasures at reductions that have made me tremble. Bead strands have been flying out - well, staggering out, if weight is taken into account - by the bag. The more I've relinquished, the more I've been able to discount; making sensible room for superlative purchases on the road.
Some of my customers have significantly helped speed my journey by taking custodianship of gorgeous, finger-bleeding-in-the-making pieces; others were equally delighted with tiny, appropriate purchases. I was exhausted, and particularly furious that David had left me to this whole she-bang over Christmas, when a chord of envy struck, elicited by a really gorgeous, sensitised, aware man (damn the fifteen inch thick wedding ring) who bought some emeralds for his beloved. Harumph, I pouted, why don't I have someone to buy something like that for me? Then my skook, the little imaginary sprite who lives on my shoulder and nudges me when I'm being stupid, kicked me in my temple, and hissed "You fool - they all belong to you anyway! And you can't take them with you on this Most Amazing But Ridiculously Ballsy Adventure When You Should Be Home Ironing, and it's only an advent calendar away so give him your most winning smile and origami-inspired gift wrapping and chuck in the matching earrings."
To some of my wonderful customers, I sold significant pieces for the small change in their bags. To others, I halved and then halved the cost again. Kid's received kid's discounts, and octogenarians were able to buy their gifts at what the dollar was worth in 1956. I did a free drive by repair service for those who came by in their motorised carts and stopped outside the shop: I'd run out with tools, fix their bits and pieces, and wish them good speed.
I gave every customer a friendship bead in a silk bag, asking them to start building a collection of beads given by friends for special occasions. Some who just dropped in to join in the merriment - and there was plenty - left me names of friends in Spain, France and Nepal who would welcome me on my journey.
Initially, as the news spread that I was leaving the shop, and the area, people whom I thought didn't understand the concept of the shop came in wearing the facial equivalent of black armbands and torn sleeves. You're leaving, that's so bad! they commiserated. We're going to miss you! When I did my dolphin hand clap and whirling dervish Sufi dance, and replied,"No, it's wonderful, I'm going on a Mad World Adventure" they became wistful, and some teared up, and many offered to carry my bags, and all were eager to share the journey in some way.
I've had so much joy and laughter in my shop, and thus in my life, particularly over this incredibly difficult last year when my metaphorical roof blew off my home, all the black rain clouds fell on my head, and the big front Zanzibar door of my solid life slammed in my face ...and a thousand hornets, and a plague of locusts, and disease and pestilence, and thieves and robbers ... and all the usual annus horribilus visitors descended on little ole me. Okay, I know there's no comparison to Chile, and Pakistan, and China, and Wogga Wogga, but then I realised that a thousand windows had flown open, and peering through each one of them was a goddess bearing just the gift I needed for that day.
There were so many hugs from my new soul sisters who understand why I am doing this Adventure Thing. Big deep warm energy boosting hugs and fat warm cheek kisses. Smiles and laughter and love and sharing. There were the goddesses who brought me flowers on a dark day. Others who rushed out and bought me sushi because it was 3.30 and I'd not eaten and I was a whiter shade of pale and for a reluctant diabetic that's not good news. A treasured new moleskin notebook. A poem wrapped in ribbon. A silk shawl, the most important of all travel clothing. A posy of spring flowers, compressed into a perfume I'd never thought of wearing, but which turned my winter to spring. Cheesecake. Floral teas. And those who, unasked, took on vacuuming and tidying, tasks I'd otherwise have to do late at night.
There were Goddesses who shared their stories with me, the good, the bad and the also ugly; goddesses who danced into the shop bearing great grins and good tidings, women who came in worn down by their daily dramas and left a little more goddess-like with hope and glimmers of happiness because Someone Listened to Them. Other goddesses on their own roads to recovery, to whom I have gifted creativity, and a reason for happy solitude.
I looked around at my emptying shop, and understood that as it empties, it fills others with joy.
I've kept my sanity and humour when people have asked if I sell hair elastics, repair watches and shoes, what's the best time to visit Vanuatu, is this the dentist? and have shrieking matches with their spouses on mobiles. I've had the innards of hamburgers explode on my carpet, soggy coffee cups abandoned on my work bench, rescued "please do not touch" works in progress that had splattered all over the carpet. Camel sized dogs licking their balls on my kilims, frisky pooches lurching towards my glass displays, two year old children throwing tantrums far too close to my my 3000 bottles of beads lined up on glass shelves. Idiots who SHAKE my bottles of antique beads. I open two hours later than scheduled for those from Afar, and opened on a Sunday for an Emergency when a husband forgot his anniversary.
I'm in the business of selling gifts. But I do what I didn't realise was part of my retail experience: I make people happy. My shop smells of Sandalwood and has strains of Persian music, and herb tea is always on offer. People come from interstate and spend most of the day. I give them what they want. Unlike a dentist, a lawyer, a hairdresser, a bikini waxer, an accountant, a breast scan .. my customers leave unhurt, unharmed, and usually happy.
In this mad time of gift giving - love and listening counts for more than what's put on the credit card.
This Christmas I did get what I want. I had a lot of love, but a little practicality is essential considering the journey ahead. I bought myself a new MacBook Pro, an IPhone and a new Canon 7D pro camera. I was supposed to spend Christmas with friends and family, someone died so now there's a funeral in Africa and my hostess was cooking bobotie in Cape Town, instead. So I went for a walk alone in the empty streets, said thanks to the ocean and the sun for being so close to my front door. I came home and had a plate of Camembert and crackers and stuffed olives and a vegetable juice. I climbed wearily into my unmade bed, and started reading the instructions to my new toys - my Mac and my Canon - who will be my constant companions for my year without clothes. Plus One Special Bead, yet to be decided.
Because I can, and because I deserve it!
As of next week, I will be of No Fixed Address.
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