A Gift

A gift. It can be a curious thing. Exciting. Comforting. Befuddling. For about a year now, I have been receiving gifts at my door. Wrapped up in plastic bags, tied to the doorknob with a handwritten note, signed with a certain apartment number.

My personal gift giver lives in my building. I know his identity: an old, Italian book seller who has lived most of his life on this corner of Manhattan. He leaves the building every morning in a three-piece suit and fedora. He never knocks on my door when he leaves the gifts; I discover them on my way out.

His gifts are of a unique variety: kitchenware from the dollar store; a single bottle of Guinness; a wind up timer. Once, I found a bag of salt with a note attached instructing me to sprinkle it in the corners of my apartment on Friday the 13th . Another time, he underlined an article about coffee and dieting and attached a tape measure for me to measure my waist.

I am still perplexed on the best way to respond. I don’t think I’ve gotten it right. Although Manhattan is an island, it’s not the small island, where farmers left olive oil and figs at my door and I reciprocated with an ear for their stories. Nor am I submerged in an anthropological setting of Marcel Mauss’s, The Gift.  This is Manhattan. The Mana is beeping horns.

But I've felt obliged (morally? ethically? personally?) to reciprocate. A book about NYC…in a bag tied to his door. A small tapenade wrapped up in a ribbon for him. Baked muffins. But in consequence, his gifts have escalated. Chianti is his favorite.

So am I doing something right or wrong with my reciprocal gift giving?
 

But I confess that a gift, even a simple spoon for stirring tea, can make a rough day feel special. And if I don’t receive a gift for weeks, I get very worried now.
I stand in the hallway before his door, silently, and listen. 
Italian opera music is playing. Good. Something is shifting. Phew…he is okay.

We do run into each other, occasionally, in the lobby.
But we never talk about the gifts.

“You’re looking good,” is how he usually starts the conversation, his fedora shadowing his eyes. And then it continues with peculiar threads of advice: “But your hair looks dry…you should polish it up. And make sure to look good when you go out. If you live with a man, never take out your teeth in front of him….”

“Okay,” I smile to all his advice, as we chat, exchanging the gift of NYC minutes. (He is busy too, always coming and going.)

I didn’t see him this morning.

But when I walked out, another plastic bag was tied to the doorknob.

An ancient gift of armor being received, as depicted on a Greek vase.