Gifts and Giving

Gifts can be tricky. Like friends. 

You crave for some, that you never get, and you accept some with a smile, that you do not really want or need. 

Almost never, one receives a gift which is so thoughtful, and so apt for the time of life and the state of soul, that it goes beyond the gift itself and becomes a special kind of giving. I got a couple such gifts yesterday and was dangerously close to tears. 

Friends, and the whole business of friendship, can be tricky. 

Seasonal, volatile, fragile, tentative, disillusioning. Liberating. Also, at this stage of life, it is satisfying to think about things with deliberate and restful uncertainty. So. I only mumbled an awkward but warm Thank You in return.