Gifts

The gifts keep coming, little boxes wrapped in newspaper or red Christmas ribbons, or showering down out of the sky in little spitting drops – Rain before the real rain begins.

They come in the form of letters, in the form of four letters of an upper left-hand cornered envelope marked T.E.S.C.

In the form of friends, old and new, friends I didn’t even know I knew, who would come out to listen to live music on a Saturday night and write how much they enjoyed it on a Monday morning.

They come from inside my grill in the shape of a salmon’s side – skin blackened but not the deep pink flesh – or from dodge-ball games the Older Boy plays with is friend from across the way.

In the small containers that push themselves up from the garden’s dark soil, in the shape of pumpkins and tomatoes. In Straw Flowers, Fox glove, Dahlias and Lemon Balm.

They come in the form of a half-inch reel-to-reel eight-track machine sitting in Corlis’ front room.

And thankfully they come in the form sleep, where night passes quickly and mostly in one piece.

In my dreams last night, I held on to a old dog by his collar with both hands on the ramp outside Ball Auto, and we waited for the train to make it’s way past to the end of its run. Kirk made sure I knew how to lace my fingers just right around the rope to hold him fast but not too tight.

He was fat and brown and scruffy -- excited but unafraid.

I’m bathing in the gifts of the Universe this morning, showering under drops of goodwill. I only need to unfurl my always-folded arms and heavy lined brow to wash myself clean and lay claim to them as my own.