Love and Will: Twenty Stories

Gifts

I wrote a novel for Sarah and sent it to her. She wrote back “For me? How sweet. Nobody has ever done anything or presented me with anything near to what you’ve just given me. I’ll treasure it always. I must confess I might not get around to reading it immediately, since I am tied up to my neck and beyond with things I’m forced to do first. But I can’t describe my pleasure in receiving this and the overwhelming gratitude I’ll always have in knowing it was written especially for me.”

I painted a series of paintings and crated and shipped them to her and she wrote back “Are these really all for me? I only looked in one of them and it said ‘1st of a series of 15,’ and I counted the other crates and came up with fourteen more and thought ‘My God, I have the entire series.’ You can’t imagine how this gift moves me. I’ll open the rest of the crates as soon as I find the time, as I have been unrelievedly busy these past few days and will be for weeks. The one I did open I’ll hang above my fireplace if I can find the space among my other paintings and prints. Meanwhile, it’s safely tucked away in a closet, so don’t fear it will get hurt. Again, what can I say but my eternal thanks.”

I wrote a sonata for her and called it “The Sarah Piece” and had it printed and sent her a copy and she wrote me “A musical composition in my name? And for the one instrument I can play if not competently then at least semipublically okay? You’ve gone out of your way to honor and please me more than anyone has and a lot more than any person should expect another to for whatever the reasons, and as soon as I can sever myself from all the other things I’m doing and which I wish I had the time to tell you about, I’ll sit down and try to learn this sonata or at least read it through. You can’t believe the many good things that have happened to me lately and which I’m so involved in, but I’ll definitely find the time to attend to my sonata in one of the ways I mentioned, of that you can bet. Once more my warmest thanks for your thoughtfulness and my respects for your creativeness, and my very best.”

I carved sculptures for her, designed and built furniture for her, potted and baked earthenware for her, wrote poems, plays and essays for her and after I completed each of these projects I sent it to her and her replies were usually the same. Her thanks. I could never know how much it means to her. She is continually amazed by the diversity of my talents and skills. She will read, look at or use this newest thing as soon as she can. Then, after I sent her a coverlet I wove and thought good enough to use as a wall hanging and maybe the best thing I’d ever made, she wrote “You’ve sent me so many things that I don’t know what to open or look at or hang or put in its rightful place or eat off of first. And not wanting to give any of your creative forms preference over the others, I’m going to set aside one of the dozen rooms here for your work and call that room the Arthur T. Reece Retreat in honor of you and put all your gifts in it so I know that whenever I want to go through any of these works or have found a place in one of the other rooms to put one of them or even when I want to think of you creating and making all these things for me, I can enter that room. The room, by the way, has no windows. It does have a wash basin and door but with no lock on it. It is a small room, once the maid’s quarters of the previous owners, so most of the things you sent me will have to be piled on top of one another, though know that’ll be done extra carefully. I am having the door taken off and the space it makes bricked up. I am cutting that room off from the rest of the house. I am going to set that separated room afire in honor of the great passion you’ve put into your work and your obvious deep feelings for me. I am honored, I am grateful, I am amazed and touched and of course ever thankful and moved, I have never known anyone more creative and generous than you. No, I am joking. I have given away all your gifts from the start and have told the post office and other delivery services to turn back any further envelope, package or crate coming from you. No, I am joking. I am disassociating myself from all the other men I know and whatever activities I’m now involved in and want you to come live with me immediately as loving soulmates and man, parents and wife. No, I am joking. I never received any of the things you claimed to friends you sent me and am beginning to doubt they all could have gotten lost along the way. No, I am joking. They all arrived but I quickly turned them into refuse. Aside from that, I am happily married, with child for the first time in my life, and wonder why you think you know me well enough to keep sending these things to me without my eventually getting disturbed and insulted by them and where you initially got my address and name. No, I am joking. I appreciate all you’ve done, have enjoyed the attention and sold whatever I could of these gifts for whatever I could get for them and with that money I am about to embark on a trip around the world with my newest lover who is also my best friend and one of our finest progressive artists. No, I am joking. It was nice of you to make all these things for me but I’m sorry to say, almost ashamed to after all I’ve said in my previous letters and just put you through, that I wasn’t once, and this is the absolute truth now, impressed. When one has it one has it and you’ve proven over and over again that you never had it and so will never have it so why bother trying anything out again in any field or form or at least on me? You do and whatever it is you send me I shall throw up on before returning it to you cash on delivery in its envelope, box or crate.”

I sent her a silver necklace someone else made but in my cover letter to her I said I fashioned it with my own homemade tools. She wrote back “For the first time, and I’m as serious now as I was at the end of my last letter, I love what you’ve made for me and think you’ve adopted a creative form that suits you perfectly and which you serve extraordinarily well. Good luck and success with it and much thanks.” I sent her more of this person’s jewelry and after the first few packages each one came back with a post office message stamped on it saying address unknown. I still send jewelry to her and other things I buy or sometimes find but say I made and they always come back. The few friends I know who know her say they also don’t know where she’s gone. The post office is right, they say. “Despite how much we all adored her and thought the feeling was mutual if not more so from her to some of us, she told no one she was going and left no forwarding address.”