‘From my garden,’ said the friend I met for lunch this week, handing me a small, heavy paper bag. Inside it were things that looked like pale, long tomatoes, the size of plums.
‘But what are they?’
‘Tree tomatoes.’
At home, I cut them open the way she suggested: you remove the stem and then suck the flesh out. They are less sweet than a peach, less tart than a gooseberry. The flesh is neither the texture of tomato nor of guava, but somewhere in between: warm and dense. The seeds are tangy.
Cut open, they reveal the heart of the universe in the orange-red quadrant of the colour wheel.
I can lose myself in the patterns made by the cross-sections of fruit and vegetables. I have an album of photographs on my phone called The Universe (you can see some of the pictures from it here).
‘Tamarillo’ is the latest addition to that album.
Giving things
Margie once said: ‘If I can’t eat it or grow it, I don’t want it.’
She didn’t say it like that. Margie is diplomatic. I have blunted the message to its essence because I like its essence.
Some people are naturally talented at the ancient exchange ritual of gift-giving but I am mostly rubbish at it.
Margie’s wisdom has helped me somewhat. You might not blow someone’s socks off with a bottle of honey from a local farm the way you would if you bought them a hot-air balloon ride, but at the very least they’d be able to use it – if they ate honey, of course.
I had an arrangement with a friend for a long time that we would not give one another birthday gifts as a matter of course. Instead, we would give gifts at random times and only because we’d come across something that we thought would be perfect for the other person.
I loved this arrangement. I am not a fan of dutiful gifts because they’re a pain to organise when you don’t know what to get. So you buy something halfheartedly and the other person is stuck with something they don’t need or like or use.
You buy something halfheartedly and the other person is stuck with something they don’t need or like or use
If it’s ‘the thought that counts’, then the thought with a gift like this is, ‘I didn’t know what to get you, so I got you this mug with a picture of a teddy bear holding a heart. Now let’s act as though this exchange is satisfying to both of us’.
Dutiful gift-giving sucks the life out of what is supposed to be an enriching exchange. Surely someone in the equation must receive pleasure?
I don’t know whether the people I have knitted cotton facecloths for like or use them or sighed inwardly when they opened their packages, but I liked knitting them and thinking about the person who was going to get it while I did it, so at least one of us in the exchange has left happy.
When a friend gave me a handwoven towel from a local weaver for my birthday one year, I don’t know what she was thinking, but I can say that the effect has been unmitigated and long-lasting pleasure every time I step out of the bath and reach for my towel. Every single time.
David Whyte writes:
To give well, appropriately and often is to establish a beautiful seasonal symmetry between the urgency within us that wishes to be generous, and the part of the world that is suddenly surprised and happy to receive.
The same evening I was given tamarillos, friends came over and gave us a bag of dried pears, each piece partially dipped in chocolate. They are extraordinary.
Both these gifts will last beyond their lasting, because they have introduced new things into my experience of the world.
Are there universal guidelines for good gift-giving?
It feels like Margie’s definition comes closest when the person you want to give to already has most of what you need.
Can you eat it?
Will it grow?
Worth spending time on
Since I got back from Pretoria at the end of January, I’ve watched these things:
Movies:
Disobedience – complex religion/queer drama with outstanding performances by Rachel Weisz and Rachel McAdams.
Good Grief – directed by Daniel Levy, who you will know and probably love from Schitt’s Creek. (And if you’ve not watched Schitt’s Creek yet, you are very lucky that it lies ahead for you.)
Nyad – loved seeing older women doing cool things, loved the swimming, love Jodie Foster, but found the character of Diana Nyad irritatingly self-involved. I know the world loves dream-seekers and winners, but God, they’re annoying on the human level.
Damsel – fantasy, dragons, adventure and Millie Bobby Brown, who is perfectly suited to these roles, and boy does she take on roles that are physically demanding! It was predictable fun that worked well with homemade popcorn and tea.
Faraway – sweet and escapist and featuring my best running-on-the-treadmill song that builds and builds and explodes.
The best thing I watched, however, was a series called One Day. Ambika Mod and Leo Woodall in the leads were outstanding, but Woodall’s performance as a sweet, privileged loser broke my heart a few times. I thought he was wonderful.
Can you recommend anything you recently watched? Please let me know in comments, so other people can see them too.
Lots of love,
K.
I watched One Day and loved it. It’s compelling and yes outstanding performances. A little while after I watched something on our Channel 4 (don’t know if you can get that) called Alice and Jack. It was similar and also very different. Came a good second place. If you haven’t seen the film All of Us Strangers - that’s a must. Xx