This morning I was gifted three presents - all unexpected, all spontaneous and without expectation of reciprocation...
I thought to write about this, as it is a particular, beautiful custom of the culture that I live in, to gift - particularly locally; fruit, vegetables, meals, flowers, a coffee in the bar (coffee shop by day, bar by night), furniture, and so on.
A few days ago, I was drinking with two Persian artists and a woman who is up for the local elections - her mum came to pick her up, but she was heading to a meeting instead - I got pulled into a chat between the mamma and artists, which ended with us pottering up the street to try to identify a plant that they'd been introduced to recently.
Five minutes later, I was with Elda's mamma at the bottom of her family's fields around 3 kms away, where she'd driven me, determined to educate me about this specific plant. Portulaca.
Fascinating: tasty; eat it raw with a little oil and vinegar she said. I did, and found more of it in the wee street below my arthouse. 20 mins together with someone I'd never met, now familiar too with a new useful plant, chatting as if we're distant relatives.
Yesterday I was having an orzo cappuccino with a friend, and Giovanni passed by - asking my name for the actual 100th time, when I've known and greeted him for over a decade - but not before he handed me, as naturally as if we were courting!
Prendi il profumo, he tells me, and I do - they're profoundly scented - and seem to be from the broccoletti family, with one King Of Weeds little dandelion flower. I thank him sincerely, from my heart.
This morning a courier called - I was expecting my oregano oil from Greece - walked up to the piazza to meet him - saw old Filippo shouting down 'giovanotto!' to the courier who was on his way down another street to find me - it was a big parcel!
Not my oregano oil!
In the time I was taking the parcel into the village shop and getting a couple of treats for my birthday tomorrow, Filippo had popped up to his house next door, wrapped cherry tomatoes, figs and a zucchino in paper, and carried them carefully downstairs to gift me with a his beautiful ancient face all lit up.
Oh my, this is so generous of you, Filippo! I say, and you can see that he gets as immense a pleasure from gifting as I do from receiving.
Though I am fidanzata and at least half his age, I blush - from the fact that he's gifting me figs, which have a local connotation around the female anatomy! Men use this as a lecherous trick with unwary foreign women! - but I'm considered Guardia DOC ('certified local') - I know Filippo and he knows my partner, so all is well ;-)
Like many older men, particularly those who don't have a wife still living, he sits in his usual position on the marble steps at the top of the street, and has done for years...
I know that the cultural exchange, the openness of foreign unaccompanied women, the blessing of a wee chitchat and a wee check-in with how each of us are - this is a small, beautiful highlight of the day for all of us - we leave with bright faces and lighter hearts - sometimes I almost skip home, because I feel such good connection and community meaning.
The small fruits and vegetables that Filippo has gifted me have such a quality of perfection: understated divinity; hand-cared for, locally grown, in season, organic, exchanged with love...
The parcel, when I unwrap it, is a luscious box of luxury chocolates! Packed beautifully within layers of paper and ice, protected and safely transported, with a wonderful note in Gàidhlig, from one of my wonderful patrons.
He is the Maestro Delle Regale - the Master Of Gifts - over the years not just helping my subsist through monthly Patreon support, but often sending a present for my birthday of such precise lovely luxury, it astounds me.
I don't often buy chocolate, and would never be in the kind of shop that this box has come from.
I unwrap two rich morsels of cocoa, and they feel like medicine for the mind-body-spirit...
I send him a voice message in Gàidhlig-English-Italiano, and feel honoured and appreciated. We smile of how his writing 'sona dhut' to mean 'happy for you' translates in Hindi as 'gold dust'...
I tell him about a study of Indian coastal women's songs, and how they resonate with Scottish west coast fisherwomen's songs.
After centuries of interpreting language through a presumptuously linear, empire-minded, academic lens, we're now understanding the organic, fluid, natural interconnectedness and interweaving of our cultures.
With my Persian friends the other day, we found an almost identical word in Gàidhlig and Iranian, for kitten...
Gifting, in this small town, in this part of the world, is as much a part of the daily commerce as drinking coffee: it's a means of punctuating the day, of making sure we're all connected and happy and well; a confirmation that sei una parte di noi - a reminder to us that we belong.
Sometimes there's a little (welcome!) bondage in a person gifting: they're lonely, and want to chat a little longer, spend some time around someone younger and full of Life, with stories from the bigger world, or just a different view of the day from further down the street... This is beautiful too. This is what a community is made of: non-transactional exchange of resources, time and energy. Weaving our fabric from our spectrum of colours and shades.
Living In The Gift.
Many blessings on your day, and do come and join our LIVING IN THE GIFT community if you like this content!
Clare @clareartista
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