Not all gifts come wrapped in shiny paper.
Some come tucked inside the pages of a notebook.
Some are found by a riverbank.
Some are as quiet as a thread, as weightless as a leaf.
I’ve never been one for grand gifts. Diamonds make me nervous. Big boxes intimidate me. I don’t want something that costs too much money. I want something that costs thought. Time. A listening heart.
Give me a pebble from a place you visited that made you think of me.
Give me a bottle cap from a drink we shared in the middle of a lazy afternoon.
Give me a can opener because I once said I could never find one when I needed it.
I like things that whisper, “I remembered.”
That maple leaf you will pick because its color looked like the sari I wore once? I’ll keep it. Forever.
All my gifts live in a little shrine of memory my nightstand, cluttered and personal.
It’s where meaning accumulates.
It’s where love sits, disguised as paper scraps and tokens.
Sometimes I think I like gifts the way children do:
Not because they’re useful, but because they hold a story. A hand-stitched corner of fabric, embroidered with shaky letters. A card with messy handwriting, the ink smudged with emotion. A stone, smooth and cold, with nothing on it except the knowing.
When someone makes something for me, I don’t care how uneven or “imperfect” it is.
It is perfect. Because someone paused.
Because someone thought, “She would like this.”
Because someone didn’t scroll past my words but held on to them.
I like people who travel somewhere and return with a gift in hand not because it’s expensive, but because it carries a moment, a thought. I once read about a husband who brought back weird-looking cups and stones and pebbles for his wife, and she was elated. Why wouldn’t she be? If I were in her place, I’d be forever grateful to that man. I remember how I used to check my father’s pockets when he came home from work, hoping he had brought something for me. He never really did, but I always wished he had. I still love when people bring back something for me from the store even when I say no, even when I didn’t ask for it. A small tub of ice cream, a chocolate, some sweet treat that costs just a few cents. It’s not about the thing it’s about being thought of, even in the ordinary moments.
And maybe it sounds silly. But when I was little and I watched Beauty and the Beast, the moment that stole my breath wasn’t the dress or the ballroom. It was the library. He gave her a library. He listened to what she loved. And then he made it real. I think about that all the time.
So yes, a girl is allowed to dream.
And my dream is this:
A handmade bookmark. A small jar of soil from your hometown. A pressed flower. A poem you wrote and never showed anyone else. A rope. A thread. A paper plane. A quiet thing that says, “You live in the details of my memory.”
That’s all I ever wanted. And that’s more than enough.
