"Catch!" The Gifts We're Not Expecting Are the Best
- Laura A. Weber
- 1 day ago
- 4 min read
(In my sleep I dreamed this poem)
Someone I loved once gave me
a box full of darkness.
It took me years to understand
that this, too, was a gift.
-Mary Oliver, "The Uses of Sorrow" (Thirst, Beacon Press, 2007)
I turned 60 this year. Yay! What a milestone! As a kid, I never thought I'd live past 30, so it is a fantastic surprise! My Birthday bash was a blast, featuring the raucous presence of some shenanigan-inspiring friends who caused tsunamis of laughter, and my home-town family honoring my request for a communal evening of "Catch." Why Catch?
It's Just Catch. Nothing fancy. Tensile connection by hurling a bright sphere on an arc, back-and-forth, back-and-forth, a beautiful cadence of "I see you. You see me. We're in sync, you and me." Playing catch is one of those sacred gifts that fills me, and marks each encounter with a ritual of mutuality, synergy, and love.
I love these kinds of gifts, simple, free, and totally natural. Including that "box full of darkness" the poetess talks about - mine is grief these days - I can see and celebrate all good gifts. It's usually with heartfelt gratitude and fully embodied joy, because I have the gift of friends, friends, friends. Just the sight of my loved ones, human and more-than-human kin, rouses gratitude and joy in a way that invites the sublime into my soul. Like Catch. We keep each other in sync.
Recently, I've been hyper-aware of unexpected gifts, some from acquaintances, some from friends, many from Nature - all wild, random, and precious. The giving impulse always astonishes me, like Nature's gifts, freely, lavishly given. Summer itself is a profligate smorgasbord of delectable, aromatic, symphonic, sumptuous gifts!
What would Life be like if we never took a moment to really open, luxuriate, and appreciate these unbelievably fantastic gifts? Or to see them as a "pretty back-drop" for the items we work tirelessly to store in a garage or basement, carelessly mislaid, seldom used, or maybe forgotten?
Unexpected gifts are the ones I treasure the most. Like these:
This is a black walnut seed pod, already beginning its transformation, offered to me by a lovely young woman who participated in a Shinrin Yoku (forest bathing) session I led recently. A beautiful gift! She said the Earthy aroma reminded her of childhood, all her memories flooding back to captivate and console her:
Here is a precious bowl of lavender, scent of the divine. The spent blooms in the bottom are from a friend of 50 years, and the little sachet a gift from a drum circle leader I just met who wanted to give me something fragrant and lovely from her garden. Lavender speaks to me of the circle of life, so alluring, so fragile, so majestic:
Look at this local Mama and Baby, framed in a circle of light, peering through our water fountain. My breath caught in the midst of this gentle moment. Pure joy, visible through the "keyhole":
What a surprise to encounter this three-toed box turtle (I called "Towey") on a farm in rural Missouri, where the land's caretakers love all their creature-kin to the Nth degree. This happy little one found a mud puddle and took a splash:
¡Qué maravilla! Here is a Mexican sunflower in our garden, just opening into a June morning. I cannot get over the gorgeous mandala interior. Our pollinators are blushing at the possibilities this bloom offers. I'm just astounded:
This looks like a variety of Russula (Brittlegills), that greeted me on a hike through the woods after a steady rain. I could not stop looking at the ravishing shade and gentle folds, speckled and undulating:
I was given these precious stones for healing from friends who help me to stay grounded. Touchstones are the ones who make us feel safe, known, and loved:
This monarch discovered the nectar in the hummingbird feeder - Surprise! How far did she travel on her journey? A reminder that our odyssey is often convoluted, and that Life finds a way:
There are other Box Noir gifts we'd Just. Rather. Not: critical health issues, financial ruin, relationships that go awry and die, children in crisis, loved ones suffering from dementia, debilitating addictions, failures, and losses that we'd like to return to sender. We receive them anyway. No need to suffer alone! We're all recipients. The question is how do we open those gifts, and how do they open us?
We can't even begin to open a "box full of darkness" without understanding that this too is a gift. It's like dusk without the hope of dawn. Darkness is an invitation to shine a light. What can open in us when we receive these unexpected gifts? They might wake us up, stir us into action, compel us to be engaged, protective of, and continuously nurturing all we love.
What matters is if we can see it all as gift, and be grateful.
Today is a day I give thanks. And by Today, I mean Every Day. I give thanks for the unexpected gifts I receive, whether a box full of darkness that perplexes and rends me silent, or the ones I understand - the gentle visitations, miracles of Nature, circles of friends, smiles and laughter of children, the satisfying rhythm of catch, and the glimmers of light that give me such joy. What unexpected gifts will surprise us today? Catch! And be Grateful. (Listen)
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