Yesterday was a hard day. I don’t know if it’s because we largely ignored Christmas last year – we moved all our things into storage on the 23rd – or just because it’s a family time, but both Carl and I were missing Emily a bunch, even as we enjoyed Noah’s wriggly self. On top of that I was having the sort of vaguely usual mourning feeling about our childhood Christmases, which came with a lot of wonder, gifts, and molestation and secrets and icky shit.
I finally went shopping, which is an awful thing to do on Christmas Eve, but picking out some stocking stuffers did make the system kids happy and giggly and well, if dropping $50 can do that, since we had it, hey. Plus we weren’t planning to do stockings this year and reversing that decision was – fun.
One of the things I was muttering to myself, I admit, before we each figured out that the other was experiencing Christmas angst, was that I had no faith that Carl had actually gotten me/us a Christmas present.
Normally I don’t wig out over things like that – in the greater scheme of things, getting something on a particular day is not a huge deal – but we’ve been in a lot of conflict over the work schedule that leaves no room for a real life. So I, I report ashamedly, was really getting myself into a tizzy about it and trying to give Carl hints – we’re out of espresso coffee, maybe you should go get some. I had mentioned a few times that I would really like a laser printer to print manuscript pages with. So I was trying to toss him in the direction of Future Shop or Best Buy or some other American-owned conglomerate.
Really. I was. Because I am a bit of a control freak who also has some trouble admitting to needs. It would have been so much better to say “it truly was fine that last year you got me a gift on Boxing Day but this year it is not and you have 5 shopping hours left to make it okay!”
Oh ye of little faith.
And in fact Carl engineered the trip to the mall so that he did disappear for an hour or so and I sighed with relief and even went so far as to presume that the stroller would fit in the trunk along with the printer box. And I didn’t peek… much… except I did spy a corner of something and it did not look like a printer. But that was ok. There was a gift there.
So this morning he brought it in and it was…
A serigraph of New Love by Daphne Odjig, out of a series of 100. (The colours are much more intense than the scan.) It was a print we didn’t buy when we were pregnant with Emily and tile and linoleum had to be bought. Before the train derailed, in a sense.
It’s matted and framed, so it wasn’t a last minute guilt purchase, either.
It’s beautiful. And perfect for me, for Lyr, for where we are in our life. I cried out of joy and gratitude and shame for the way, when things are hard, I lose faith so easily sometimes.
I am so blessed in so many ways.
