Each Christmas week we get together with some long-time friends from Northfield to exchange books and trade stories. Yesterday, my assignment was to wrap the books before dinner.
Searching in a cabinet for a few book-sized dregs of wrapping paper, I spied a forgotten packet of untouched gift envelopes. Figuring we needed a card for the occasion, I fished around for the matching set of enclosures. All I found was one card, which slipped through a crack between the shelf and the wall and fell behind a box.
Undeterred, I fumbled around for awhile until I retrieved it.
The card had already been filled in, seven years ago. By the people we were about to see.
Not only that, the note made mention of the author whose latest book, after much deliberation over several options, we were about to bestow on them. It also spoke of a neighbor and colleague of theirs who had fallen off a ladder, and whose wife had some experiences that, let's just say, paralleled ours.
I am not a sentimentalist. I recycle. Holiday cards rarely stay past the arrival date.
Yet this one rearrived, right on time.
Today, having returned the serendipitous card to its authors, we went to a matinee of Milk. Who should sit two rows ahead of us but the aforementioned neighbors from Northfield, whom I know because he was my religion professor 40 years ago. If I have seen him since, we'd have to measure the gap in decades.
I don't pretend to understand. I just keep trying to pay attention.
