the habit of being

All the Christmas gifts are made or bought or delivered or put in the correct reciprocals. Except one. I don’t have anything for James. Why is it such a problem? Something is -stopping- me from just sending him a gift. I made a box. I went through my top drawers and pulled out various odds and ends (metals I’ve won and stray trading cards once collected and little glass things and letters long unread and objects of more or less symbolism) and put them all in a box as a sort of ‘rummage through my things’ and I really thought it was a great gift idea. It’d be giving a part of myself. Something that didn’t just cost money. And he’d like it, really. I guess. But I didn’t send it. I don’t know why. Maybe I’d like to be there to explain it all. Maybe it’s just too sentimental. My mother’s idea was a blue linen man’s shirt of mine. It’d bring out his eyes. It was mine, but it’s not so horribly sentimental as expecting him to appreciate my old junk. But I know he’ll understand the box some day. It’s the idea of not giving him a Christmas gift that’s got me worried. Maybe I should just buy something. Anything. Something with a bow I tied.

Earlier I finalized my shopping for Christmas Eve night at my grandfather’s house at Pier 1 in Savannah. I bought “antique” wire storage baskets and decorative glass gems and water colors with glitter in them. The glitter paint is for my younger half-sister, Emma. The daughter of a dance teacher, she’s just beyond amazing. She lives like a star in her own ballet and is so sweet and lovely and such a girl. Pretty was invented for people like her.

I was just thinking about the first time Jennifer came to visit me. We went to Atlanta and stayed at the Marriott and Lenox and shopped at the Lenox Square Mall and ate Caesar salad at the hotel restaurant and all that yummy stuff. We didn’t do anything like that this last time. (We went to the Claxton Goodwill store.) What brought this to mind was my mother’s and my plan to head off to the Ritz Carlton for a night if our combined sum of monetary Christmas gifts is enough (shh.. it’s a secret). Fancy hotels are the closest thing to paradise on earth. I’m not kidding. There is -nothing- better than a great hotel. Nothing.

On the way home from Savannah the child sat the entire length of the ride on the other side of the mirror. She didn’t look straight at me as if this were the usual thing. A blur fell about her in such a way that I knew her thoughts were radial. The child sat there thinking hard about thinking. She couldn’t figure out if she’d ever thought before. Was she thinking then? We couldn’t answer her questions so the answers must all be no. I was only in her peripheral, though.

Charity and Emily are coming over tomorrow bearing gifts. I’m excited. I don’t have very many friends at school. Especially not those willing to spend money on me. This is indeed classy.