If you buy me a gift — a holiday reminder from Mary Mott Writes

I hope you will put on your red coat and red mittens and red muffler and walk to town to your favorite store.

Mary Mott Writes
2 min readDec 5, 2020

The store you love to go to because it has unexpected things. Things you have yet to discover. Things that inspire you. A store you wander through like a personal museum. Mittens from Finland. Local pottery with leather handles. Fuzzy mauve scarves with big stitches. Cards with berries stuck on them. Packets of juniper seeds.

If you buy me a gift, I want you to feel a rush of discovery in the finding. I want the gift to be something that speaks to how you see me. Something you suspect I’ll be curious about. Something, perhaps, I’ve never considered.

If you buy me a gift, you will not do it from a list that I send you. I will not do that. The list would only be about me. And not the connection between us.

If you buy me a gift, I hope it is a yellow card on which you will write a story and seal it with pink wax.

Or a small paisley box wherein you place a sweet shell you found on the beach in September when I couldn’t join you.

If you buy me a gift, I want you to wrap it in brown paper and tie it with green yarn from the sweater you never quite finished last year.

If you give me a gift, I will treasure it. I will see you in your red coat and red mittens and red muffler. I will think of you in your favorite store perusing your favorite things. I will think of you coming upon the true gift that reminds you of me.

And when I open the brown paper and untie the yarn I will know that you are there. Watching me. I am quieted by your choice of this gift for me. Honored really. I will hold it now and eventually I will put it on my table next to the grey chair where I have my coffee in the mornings.

And remember.

If you give me a gift.

(This holiday I honor our revered retailers who struggle to keep their doors open for us. Three customers at a time… hand sanitizer and masks at the ready. Thank you.)

Originally published at https://marymottwrites.com on December 5, 2020.

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Mary Mott Writes
Mary Mott Writes

Written by Mary Mott Writes

I can’t squat. I enjoy a good conversation with my dog Rosie. I like to sing to Queen in the car. I gravitate to carbohydrates. I’m politically and . . .

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