What a tricky topic. There’s official etiquette on this: the soon-to-be-married couple is supposed to convey their (our) desires, but not ask for anything … like, when asked, “Are you registered anywhere?” our job is to answer, “Yes, we are registered at ______” but any specific/direct requests for gifts is verboten. Oh. And the other thing we are allowed to do is let a good friend know our wishes, and have faith that folks will ask that person about our wishes.
But we must not provide such info ourselves!
You know, I get it, and pretty much I agree. Perry and I, we’re in kind of funny circumstances, you know. We don’t have the traditional emissaries for distributing such info, like an official Best Man or Matron of Honor. And what with this being our second marriage, and we’re all grown-up with lots of “stuff” (okay, too much stuff). And really, it means the world to us, the little things, like our friends being so happy for us, and other friends offering to help in whatever way. I mean, we’re already fortunate beyond reconciliation. So, we started out pretty much discouraging folks from giving us anything.
That doesn’t work too well.
So once we accepted that people do ENJOY giving gifts and we buckled down and made ourselves a LITTLE list, we did have some success with the drop-a-little-clue technique of broadcasting our wish-list. Perry whispered it to his mother, Patricia, and she relayed it to her daughters, Nancy, Cathy, and Donna. And so, last month when he and I visited St. Louis, his sisters each bestowed us with a ROCK. There they are in the lower right-hand corner of the photo above.
We LOVE rocks. We have a great, big garden to house rocks, and adore the ways that rocks speak to people. The note below is the one that Donna included when she gifted us with a rock; I think it says a lot.
By the way, in case you are asking, we did make a Wish List at Lee Valley, and are working on a registration at Amazon. Forgive us, it’s hard work asking for things … I guess it’s been a long time since I wrote a letter to Santa, and I am out of practice.
You Bad Bad person! You made me cry. I cant seem to stop. This is so on point that it hurts. It hits a sore spot in my heart. It is a touching note with lots of feeling in it. And I find the scab over my feelings exposed . This is some thig the 2 boys have done for their grandparents every time we went some where so that they could be with us too. They would place them out in the Japanese garden in the river bed. There were rocks from Europe ,Alaska, Port townsend. Seattle,Texas Friday Harbor. You get the picture. Some times we wanted them to come with us but Grandpa wasen’t into planes and for that matter travel. The hard part is we just sold the farm with the Japanese garden in it and I just realized we dont have any of those rocks opps. Shit
Posted on 27-Jun-07 at 6:12 am | Permalink