The Best Gifts

What did I get for Christmas? Can you tell by my smile that I liked it all?

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This was a different Christmas for me. I am starting a new life, really. As dramatic as that sounds, it's true. Not on the outside, maybe, but I have been cracked open--my heart--and there's no stuffing the passion that's spilled out back inside. I wouldn't want to and I can't.
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So this Christmas I knew it was up to me to make it whatever I hoped for.
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I started with my clients. No, that is not true. I started with
Renee.
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Julie Ann came up with this idea of a collective love fest of holiday gifts to Renee. We sent out some emails and left secret messages on her friends' old posts, and by the time the mailing 'deadline' came round, almost 40 of us had sent gifts and cards to my home here at # 9, where I would send them on to this wonderful wise woman in Winnipeg.
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Preparing Renee's We-Treasure-You chest was the easiest act of love I will ever do. This huge box was filled to the brim, packages from Ireland and Malaysia and England and Australia and Canada and across the United States, from California to Rhode Island. It was the easiest act of love I will ever do. It filled me with an endless Christmas spirit that I still feel right this minute.
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And then my clients. I am a traveling Psychotherapist these days: I see an even number of children and adults in their homes or schools, sometimes in the front seat of my car.
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My clients are notably poor, often traumatized and neglected in ways that no one should ever endure. All my adult clients have been wounded as children, and their pain is often just as current as the children who are also my clients, who are in foster care, many without the love and protection of a Mother or Father.

It would have been easy for Christmas to be pretty depressing in this circumstance. But that is not how it came down for me. For one thing, Debra Kay sent me this amazing box of toys and toiletries and games and books and I got to give them to 2 year old Jacob, 4 year old Angelina, 6 year old Mac, 10 year old Daisy, 17 year old Frannie, 48 year old Alice. (the names are made up, I don't like that but I have to.)
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And Mim gave me two winter coats in perfect condition. Those went to Daisy's mother, and you should have seen her giddiness trying them on.
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And then there was Emily's auction. Thanks to art auctions by
Marianne and Caroline, and straight out contributions by many heart sisters and blog friends, we raised $ 400 for the summer program (acting lessons) of a 13 year old girl who, if things fall right, will be the first and only in her family and community to make it to college, to become a mechanical engineer, to live and work in Japan as a Cartoon Animator. That is her dream, to be able to pursue that, to live like that.
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So you can see that the spirit of Christmas started early and strong for me. But there is more.
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I knew my holidays had begun when I sat in my friend Lolo's studio and dining room a few weeks ago and we shared presents and she fixed lunch for us and she showed me some computer graphic tricks. It is a special treat to have a friend who is so talented and artistic. Mim and I pulled off a surprise that day: Mim, who could not make our trip to Provincetown with Debra Kay, showed up at Lolo's door, a face to face surprise for three women who were clearly friends long before they stood in the same room and breathed the same air.
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And my mailbox this year. For some reason every card and every call was special and heartfelt. I love catching up with old friends this way, but this year I was bestowed with cards and gifts from my friends born from the blogs, and every greeting was a total treat. On each envelope I looked at the handwriting with delight: ah! that is how Baino writes! Oh, what a lovely message from Renee! OMG, Mim hand painted that card for me! Oh Babs, can you ever paint! Oh Angela, those angels--oh thank you so much Angela. And Lori, didn't we laugh from the first second--what a gift that was! I could go on. The mail person and the gods and godesses brought me very special gifts this year, very very special gifts.
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But let me now tell you about my very favorite present this year. It was not a present for me at all, but a present I gave. To JB. It was a present first given to me by a woman I adore, my beloved friend Valerie Walsh who one day asked me why I was looking at all her old posts and Illustration Fridays, asked me outright if I was looking for one for the cover of my book, then asked me if she could do me the honor of painting something original for the cover, a gift from her in honor of my first book, she said, anything I wanted.
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This Christmas Val chose the frame and matting and I surprised JB with this original painting of her Magic Cottage, the same cottage that is in our side yard--JB's studio--and that is the incredibly beautiful cover of my first published book. I wanted to include a picture of this painting but I couldn't get the brilliant aqua frame to stop looking blue. Another time, surely.
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Oh Val, I keep holding the painting in my hand and I am in awe. It is beautiful in every way. Thank you, friend. ♥
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And here's the last best part. It started when JB opened Val's painting. My son-in-law Mike looked at it and said, 'Wow.' And Jessica said 'Wow'. And then I had put six of Lolo's cards in Mike's stocking, and given JB a framed shot of her in the kitchen, the morning shadow hitting her just right. And I talking about Marianne's mandalas, Tessa's calender, Mim's Ms. Em. And more.
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Just before Jess left for her own home I showed her a beautiful ATC mandala painting Marianne had given me for my birthday, and I could tell she loved it. I whisked up one of the two black 2 x3 frame JB had just given me in my stocking and I handed both to Jess. "Take it," I said. "I want you to have it."
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Jess looked at the little painting, smiled, and said, "I wish I had some artists like this in my life."
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That was the best part. The best gift ever. A certain way of seeing, of loving and sharing, a way of living fully and passionately-- is being handed to my daughter. Of all my presents this holiday season, that is the best one.
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Thank you, all, so much for being part of my new life. Please don't think I have arrived anywhere advanced or self actualized or problem-free, because I am a bona fide searcher, just feeling my way, trying the best I can. Probably just like you....
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Love

kj ♥