"So, Helena, what do you want and need for Christmas?"
To me, that's maybe one of the stupidest questions I've EVER heard.
But before I get into THAT, let me talk first about the Twin Peaks DVD.
Okay, so no fewer than THREE people have asked me if I have the Twin Peaks DVD, because they have it, and they love it. Great. Well, NO, I don't have it, because: a.)I don't have a television anymore, b.) I never did get a DVD player, just in case DVD's flourished for a few minutes, and then went the way of the laserdisc, and c.) who the hell has the money to buy DVD's ANYWAY!?
Come to think of it, I didn't get a computer until LONG after it was clear they were essentially necessary for social survival. And I haven't updated ANYTHING about the computer I got three years ago, except to add a scanner. In the past three years, the printer has died, the sound-card has died, and I've lost the screws that hold the speakers in place (which doesn't matter anyway, because the sound-card died), PLUS, the scanner doesn't particularly like to be used.
I didn't get a CD player until long after they were popular. I survived on cassette tapes. Still, many of my favorite albums are on cassette.
So... if I'm surviving with all of these out-of-date pieces of technology, or, as in the case of DVDs, WITHOUT technology, doesn't that sort of imply that big magic stereos with woofers, cell phones (nope; don't have one of those either!), and even television, is not really... necessary to survival? I don't understand why people think I'm so down-and-out because I don't have a freakin' DVD player! Or a nice, brand-new computer.
So, I'm sitting here thinking about my friends, acquaintances, and loved ones, and how each and every one of them is craving some wonderful material object for Christmas. Aaron posted a list of stuff he wants on his site. My penpal in North Carolina sent me a list of stuff she's asked for, (including a DVD player... Argh!). This one wants this, that one wants that. It just seems like a game anymore.
When I moved into my own place, I had no dishes. My mom gave me her spare set, a set that she'd probably acquired via those stupid stamps Price Chopper -- you know, spend five bucks, you get a sticker; collect five stamps, get a plate. Before that, I'd been eating off a stolen plate from Java Joe's. When I had no furniture, Peter's mom gave me two beat-up chairs. When I had no table, a lady from my mom's work -- whom I didn't even KNOW -- collected an old table and a couple of chairs for me. Before that, I was sitting on the floor. Such generous, wonderful people in my life! Yet, in those few weeks I had almost NOTHING, I survived.
Yeah, I gotta admit, sometimes my life is mighty inconvenient. It SUCKS not having a car, for example, on those 20-degree mornings when I have to be someplace in fifteen minutes. It SUCKS that my glasses are all scratched up and just a little bit below what my eyes need. It sucks that my stereo doesn't make mix-tapes very well, and I have to use Norman's CD-player, which ALSO doesn't work very well. It sucks not to have cable anymore. It sucks when I run out of shampoo and spend a week using bubble-bath on my hair until my next paycheck. But I always survive.
Helena's survival gear:
Toothbrush, hairbrush, pair of jeans, tank top, sweater, coat, sneakers, photo of David, notebook, all materials pertaining to current writing-project, discman, four or five CD's, set of Tibetan bells, Neil's leather vest, and great-grandma's Royal Daulton figurine. If I was trapped on a desert island with those things, plus food and water, I swear, I'd be fine. If I was trapped on a desert island with those things and some interesting companionship, I'd never want for anything. Ever. Hell, even the bells and the fingurine aren't necessary for my well-being and joy; it's just that the bells are beautiful, and the figurine reminds me I have a past.
What do I want for Christmas? I want the mail to come on Christmas, and on Sundays, too. I want socks, because I threw out all the ones I had without mates, and now I have none. (Yeah, guys; I've been going without socks since August -- and you think I have the Twin Peaks DVD?) I want anything that you'll give me to show me that you care about me and took more than thirty seconds of your time picking out some lameass t'shirt from JC Penney's for me. Hell, if you gave me a little bag of pretty rocks you'd picked up by the river, I would be OVERJOYED! If you gave me a bottle of sand from a pretty place you'd been to, I'd probably cry. Even if you just gave me the bottle, without the sand, and said, "this is my favorite bottle, because this is the soda I was drinking when I met you," I'd probably weep. I don't need STUFF. I don't even really WANT stuff. I just gotta know that people think about me once in awhile.
I can't tell you how many times, over the past twenty-one years, I've received things for Christmas that went immediately into the Salvation Army pile. Pink sweatshirts with bunnies on them. Candleholders with pink roses on them and "HALLMARK!" stamped on the bottom. Stickers of Winnie-the-fucking-pooh. Huge 80's earrings. Those gahd-awful tank tops with HARD ROCK CAFE stamped on them, that never seem to fit me. But you know what my favorite present always was when I was a little kid? Rocks! My uncle, an amateur geologist, would pick up neat little pieces of quartz, glue them to a piece of cardboard, and write the names underneath each one. I loved those boundlessly. My uncle never spoke to me; he just wasn't a very social guy. But he knew I liked rocks, and he probably spent HOURS on those stupid pieces of cardboard: tumbling the stones to make them shine, gluing them to the board, looking up the names, writing them all down... The rocks, and the very first journal I ever got. It was pink. I hated it for being pink, but I wrote in it every damned day. My dad gave it to me. I threw it away some years back because it had gotten wet and you couldn't read it anymore, but OHHHH, what an addiction that started!
...but if you don't know me well enough to get me something that I'll really love, and really use, and really cherish, DON'T get me a fucking bunny sweatshirt just out of obligation. If you have to ask what I want for Christmas, you don't know me well enough to be buying me anything. How about spending some time listening to me, and getting to know me, and THAT can be my Christmas present!
I have three marvelous presents so far to give to people. I made mix-tapes for my mom and for Penny. I spent HOURS on each one, picking songs they'd like. Penny's is all cheesy top-forty stuff, even though I hate that crap. But I know she'll love it. And I have a very neat gift for David, too, although I'll probably forget all about it until mid-May. I didn't buy that one. Let's just say I saved up a lot of "stamps," with his assistance, to acquire it many years ago. I have a brilliant idea about what to get Norman for Christmas too, but I haven't got enough money, so he'll have to wait until his birthday, or my birthday, or Labor Day. I think I'll send it to him anonymously. He'll know it's from me, but it's so expensive, and so wonderful, that he'd probably want to clobber me for the effort. But really, it isn't about money. It's just that there are a few people in the world I feel I really KNOW, very, very well: well enough to get them something really beautiful and touching that they'll love and use.
So, if I say "I don't want anything for Christmas," it doesn't mean I'm a scrooge, although I kind of am. It just means I don't NEED anything in order to make me happier than I am. I'm delighted with the things I have. Sometimes it might be better if I had DVDs instead of videos, and sometimes it would be nice to have a super-fast computer, and sometimes I'm really fiending for a bottle of expensive shampoo, but most of the time, I'm just pleased with what I have.
And Helena spake unto them in parable:
Once, I knew two people who had no money. They didn't have a dollar to their names. So they sold their CDs. ALL of them. They sold them for two hundred dollars. They didn't even keep their very favorites. After all, they had NO money. And do you know what they did with that $200? They took me out to lunch. I had a salad with ranch dressing and extra chickpeas. The bill for that was pretty intense, because they'd taken me to a pretty fancy place. Then, they bought me a leather vest from a used-clothing store. It was seven or eight dollars. Maybe the equivelent of two or three CD's. They did this for me because they loved me, and they saw me looking lovingly at that vest. They did it because, during their days of being super-poor, I'd been giving them my coffee mug after I was done with it, so they wouldn't have to buy their own cups. I can't even tell you how much that $200 meant to them. I mean, I've never been so down-and-out that I had to sell ALL my CDs. They didn't owe me anything at ALL. They didn't give me that vest because they felt obligated. They didn't give it to me because I was whining to have it. They gave it to me because they loved me, even though it represented two or three of their very favorite CDs. Now, that was in May or June, but guys, THAT is the spirit of Christmas. Chickpeas never tasted so sweet as on that day!
Gotta get going....
~H.T.*