It's a tiny ornamental giraffe, made from a wire-frame and beads.
I love it.
I think it's because their little girl always associates me with the giraffe hand-puppet thing I do whenever they're on Skype. The 'bad giraffe' is often naughty enough to wander on to the screen without me noticing. Sometimes he has a fight with a crocodile who emerges from the other direction.
It's such a simple thing, this little ornament, but it means a lot to me.
A few things have been making me think about the way I process gifts. I don't consider myself to be very good at thoughtful presents, and I've always preferred people's time and friendship. I see enforced gift-buying (Christmas, birthdays) as treachorously difficult and I frequently need help to get it right. There's a whole range of levels of awkwardness involved in that process I don't even have time to go into today. Even receiving gifts is socially awkward sometimes.
Somehow though, I still deeply care about the thought that goes into it and what gets encapsulated in these objects - small things, particularly. It matters.
I think these things are like portals, invisible connectors between the giver and the recipient - all the emotion, memory and intimacy of a hug, a kind word, a friendship... is contained inside them, wrapped around these little trinkets like an aura. You see it and touch it and it transports your heart through time and space.
It's not just something you need, not necessarily something you would have wanted, but something wonderful nonetheless.
So, this little giraffe reminds me that I want to get better at the notoriously tricky art - both the giving and the receiving.
And I think that's a lovely thing from far away.
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