“The heavens and the planets go around.” Scribbling blocky letters on a dark piece of paper, I wrote down the meaning of my friend’s name on a Saturday afternoon. Cutting with scissors too small for my hands, walking to CVS to print photos at ten o’clock in the morning, pulling out exactly eight dollars and 95 cents for a poster, and purchasing flowery socks sometime ago with the intention of gifting one day. So many small things — but it was the lengths to which I went to put them together that made them significant. These small gifts are products of my observations and care for the people around me: visiting a friend’s room to realize her walls are bare, or realizing that she seems to like Studio Ghibli movies based on her phone wallpaper. It’s hard to expect a birthday gift from friends at a boarding school with the nearest Target over an hour’s walk away and enough homework to cause a laptop crash. Regardless, that’s just what I do. Even in times when I’ve got too much on my plate, the joy that gift-giving brings me is worth the cost of time, or anything else for that matter. This gifting culture, however, isn’t quite present in the same way among Andover students or many students my age at all. Expectations, commitments, homework; it’s all too easy to write off putting effort into relationships for “being too busy.” Why don’t we consider relationships one of those commitments? Should something like a gift be considered as not worth the effort?
Gift-giving was an unofficial custom I grew up with. Whenever visiting the house of a family friend, or even someone new, it was always customary to give a gift, be it a wine bottle, a favorite food, or flowers. My parents always instilled that gifts make people feel welcome in a foreign place, and that they convey sentiments words cannot. From that time on, nothing would ever replace the joy of seeing someone accept a gift they didn’t expect. It’s the magic of knowing you’re cared for and the novelty of a surprise fused into one. This is why I am a gift giver — gifts of any kind are the way we give little parts of ourselves to people who give us everything. Hand-sewing a cat keychain for a feline fanatic speaks much louder than a gift given from a store, because that gift won’t have the same strangely appealing, uneven stitches and wonky eye.
After a day of orchestra, awkward conversations, and disappointing history grades, I find solace in seeing a knitted wide-eyed black cat, blue scarf in tow. Mio, as my friend affectionately named him, came in a recycled eBay box as a late birthday present from my friends back home. Mio is an affectionate message to me that there are always people who care for you, no matter where you are. These friends have given me warmth and affection in the midst of a fast-paced daily life. I hope to recreate that warmth for the people who receive my gifts. I want to make gifts that are significant for their sentimental value, not material worth, items forever associated with whoever gave them to you.
It is crucial to consider those gifts one has been given. The playlist your friend made for you before you moved away, the card you received from a friend 1000 miles away — these are “small things” that are valuable. As school flurries by and it becomes difficult to spare time, I use gift-making as my break. I encourage you to consider all of the gifts you’ve received, physical or not. A childhood toy, a new record, or a thoughtful letter, the sincerity behind them likely shone through. This, I propose, is missing from many modern relationships, and consequently, at Andover. Effort should be put into those friendships, given to those prefects who welcomed you on day one, that friend who lay in the grass with you to watch the stars, or the lower who always offered last-minute chemistry help. I implore you to participate in this — engage in the idea of giving more than just a few words of gratitude to the people who make your life at Andover special. Consider those friends at home who never forgot you, the memories they’ve given you, and bring that to Andover. Bring the joy of those celebrations following a competition, or the gift exchanges before the winter break here. Carry on the cycle of giving, because that’s how a new culture is made.
If any gift givers are out there, the effort you put into the “small things” is received and cherished. To all the people who’ve given me gifts, the sentiment is reciprocated and passed on in the things I make for others. On busy days, let the presents and knick-knacks you’ve received remind you that you are noticed and cared for, and to slow down and breathe. Take a moment, as midterms have passed, to make something for that friend’s birthday, which is coming sooner than you thought. Even though my friend is likely confused as to why I was so insistent on finding out the meaning of her name or going to CVS late at night, I smile as I imagine the look on her face when all the puzzle pieces click in her mind.
