I’ve been writing so much about topics belonging in Politics & Social Justice that I think it’s time for something else. The following is an excerpt from my book, Voice of a Voyage. I include it now because it reminds me of that entire process of giving and receiving. I’ve been revising my Living Trust and Distribution of Personal Items, so giving is much on my mind. I learned an invaluable lesson from a dear friend a few years ago. I had called an organization I belong to as I needed a ride to physical therapy after knee replacement surgery, a service they presumably provided. For whatever reason, the ride never came through. I was stuck at the last minute needing to get there, so I contacted a few friends. Denny was the first to respond and came over to pick me up. I spent the first part of the ride apologizing to him for inconveniencing him at the last moment and so on. He stopped me and said, no, I was giving him a gift. I looked at him, puzzled. He explained including the information that we have long known that something positive happens in our brains when we are generous and thoughtful to someone else. More importantly, he asked me to remember how I felt when I did an unexpected act, no matter how small, of kindness. There is an inner glow that it had given me, that I still remembered, although it had been days ago. It’s appropriate, of course, to thank someone for their kindness and thoughtfulness, but it is not something to feel guilty about. It is a shared gift.
I met John in Suwarrow, a tiny atoll, all of it a nature reserve of the Cook Islands, about 220 miles from anything else and 500 miles from Rarotonga, the main Cook island. I was a sixty-something, Caucasian, college-educated Western woman, and John was a seventy-something, sinewy fellow of the black hair and eyes that are more Melanesian than Polynesian. He climbed sixty-foot coconut palms, saved his grandson from a shark attack, cooked coconut crabs to perfection, and patiently stripped palm fronds to make a broom. It was this that he taught me.
“No, no Missy, this way.” He peeled off a strip in one neat piece; mine was raggedy. I tried again.
“Yes, yes, Missy. Slow to start, then.” Zap, his came off in one neat sheath. I kept trying.
Finally we had a stack. Then we peeled them again, but this time some got discarded because they were not up to broom standards. We continued in companionable silence except for the “No, no, Missys,” and an occasional “Yes, yes.” Then John started humming something that sounded to me like a Gregorian chant with a South Pacific slant—his own creation. Finally we were ready to braid into the top several inches of a piece of black polypropylene line that conveniently had washed-up on shore a few days before. This was the broom’s handle. Hours after we started, the brooms were done. His was neater of course, but they both looked like twiggy bunches of thick straw. Only I knew they were not.
I still have mine.
Cook Islands-My Broom
From Voice of a Voyage, Chapter 4 South Pacific: The Dichotomy of Gift-Giving. You might also particularly enjoy two other sections from that chapter: Gift from the Deep: the Magic of Whales and Gift from the Shallows: Coral Reefs. Consider asking your library to order the book, published by Sunstone Press, ISBN 978-0-86534-990-2. It’s also available as an e-book.