The Joy of Giving

Last week I did a blog post over at CreateMixedMedia.com about Lyric Kinard and her Joy in Service project. What it's about, basically, is doing something nice for someone else. Easy enough, right?

Not so fast. Turns out that doing nice stuff is way, way harder than you might think. I wanted to do something like this--deliberately being nice to people--something we think of this time of year even though we don't technically celebrate any of the various holidays. Since the only time I get out of the house many days is the evening trip to the local Starbucks, that's where I have to practice my niceness, if I'm going to do it at all.

So I was sitting there stitching, drinking my decaf soy caramel macchiato. It was busy, with people standing in line and others waiting for their coffee. They set some drinks on the bar, and a man from across the room got up and looked around and then sat back down. I thought he hadn't seen the drinks and was unfamiliar with the store and where they set them, so in my newly helpful mode, I picked up the drinks and took them over to the man and his wife. He thanked me profusely, but the woman looked puzzled.

"Did we have grandes?" she asked. "I thought we had talls." The man looked at his cup, and I explained that they'd just set these on the bar, and then I turned around and saw the woman at the counter saying, "But I have two more drinks that aren't here."

Good grief. So I had to go back and take away the drinks that I'd just delivered, apologize for the confusion, apologize to the woman who was missing her drinks and to the barista for causing confusion.

And only then did I realize that the couple to whom I'd delivered the drinks was actually a regular couple, in an odd "couple" kind of way--sitting in the back, very close together, whispering. They're about our age, maybe a little younger, very serious and intense, and we've speculated that they're meeting clandestinely once a week at someplace--this Starbucks--far away from where anyone would expect either of them to be. So of course they knew the routine and where to find their drinks. If I had a memory, I would have known that. Plus I would have known that the last thing they wanted was for someone to notice them and actually, you know, talk to them.

Ah, well. So that didn't go so well. After apologizing to everyone and proclaiming to them all that I would now just mind my own business, which they all found highly amusing, I realized I really kind of suck at this sort of thing.

Fortunately for me, I had just begun to clear out stuff here in the office studio (again), and had come across a lot of cool stuff that had never been used. Two dozen brand-new 24-count boxes of Crayola crayons, for example. (I once thought I'd use them in teaching a workshop on creativity, but that isn't going to happen.) Lots of new composition books. Cool erasers from Flax in San Francisco. Tiny colored pencils. A groovy travel watercolor set.

Stuff like that. So I began pairing the crayons with the blank books, adding a bow and a tag that read To: You, From: The Universe (changed later to Santa, since The Universe evoked puzzlement and snickering and didn't go over so well with Midlanders), and then, facing that, the explanation that everybody needs crayons and These are for you to take with you and enjoy.

And we waited until the store was fairly empty and then distributed the little packets on various tables (this has been going on for several nights--there are a couple dozen of these gifts). Then we'd do our usual thing--me stitching, The EGE reading the newspaper or playing Stupid Zombies or Angry Birds--and kind of watch surreptitiously to see how it went. The first couple of nights, when kids were there studying for finals, it was OK. They'd look at it and then look around, then pick it up and read it and put it back down, then show it to their friends and laugh and ignore it and then finally pick it up and take off the ribbon and use it--two guys used the erasers (big chunky round ones, one with a brain on it and one with a wide-mouthed kitten) on their papers.

But when they weren't there any more (school's out for the next two weeks), we noticed that adults would read the card and then push it away, leaving it carefully as if they believed someone had left it behind accidentally and would return to claim it. I understand this--lots of people meet at Starbucks for gift exchanges. People are generally too nice to pick up something and take it if they think it belongs to someone else.

One night a woman picked up a packet and asked the barista how much it was, and the barista tried to scan the bar code on the crayons and I had to go get it and take it from her and tell the woman that someone had left it there as a gift. And she took it and put it in her pocket and then went around the cafe and gathered up all the rest and put those in her pocket, too. For her kid, she said. Fine with me: my job here was to put the gifts out and then stay unattached to the outcome. Well, short of having the barista go nuts trying to figure out why the crayons weren't in the system.

I realized then I was going to have to do something else, something that would insure that there was no confusion and no hassle for the baristas. So I printed out little tags to attach to everything:

It seemed to go a little better. I don't care any more--the night before last, there was a family--or what I assume was a family: man, woman, little boy, little girl. The kids were kind of tired-ish, and they were sitting at the big table. I went over and picked up one of the packets that was a box of crayons and a thick stack of 8.5" x 11" paper and took it over and gave it to the man and told him someone had left it there as a gift. And it was so cool--it was like these people had never sat down and colored together. The dad totally got into it, talking about his favorite colors and how he liked to draw fish and animals and trading his yellow for the little girl's blue. And it was just great.

And then I thought that, with my luck, they were probably running from The Law, having robbed a bank in Idaho and making their way to Costa Rico with kids they weren't even supposed to have in some complicated custody battle. But I didn't care, because, eavesdropping (how can you not, at a Starbucks?), I heard what sounded like a family having a great time drawing and coloring together, never mind how I suck at the whole Doing Nice Things thang.

I highly recommend this if you have rather a lot of new or virtually new stuff that you know someone else would love. Some suggestions:

~~make sure you leave it somewhere where it won't be confused with merchandise for sale. You can't, for example, leave it in a toy store. People would be confused, and this time of year? Confusion is not a good thing.

~~Make sure people know it's free and they won't get yelled at for taking it. That's a biggie.

~~Don't try to get rid of your ratty broken pencils or mismatched socks. That's just lazy.

~~Be a little anal-retentive: think about things like I would. For instance: I didn't leave just a box of crayons by itself because if someone opened it with a small child and didn't have anything to draw on, what might happen? Drawing on the tables at Starbucks isn't going to make anyone happy. Don't leave packets near similar stuff that's for sale, which could lead to confusion: they can take this, so why not that, too.

~~It's more fun and means more if you stay out of it. If you go up and hand people a gift, sure, that's fun. But part of why you're doing it is so you can feel like a good person and get thanked. Better for your soul if you just give things with no need of thanks or recognition: it's good to practice letting go and non-attachment to outcome.

~~probably not a great idea to leave food, like cookies you've made. People are leery about stuff like this, always remembering the razor-blades-in-the-apples stories.

~~if you don't have anything to give away, you can print out nice notes and put them places where people will find them. My editor sent us a Christmas card with a sheet of notes like this, little things she'd printed out that you cut apart and give away or hide. "You have a wonderful smile." "You're a really nice person." "You deserve a marvelous day." Things like that.

And of course, what I realized in the process of doing this is that it's purely selfish. I'm getting people to take things I need to get rid of. I get the thrill of thinking that someone will be happy because of something I did. And I got to listen to that dad telling his kids that green was one of his favorite colors. What's not to love about that?