Surprise Gifting Myself

A Christmas present to myself arrived on the doorstep last week.  At first, I wondered what was in the brown package because I hadn't ordered anything as of late.  But when I cracked it open there it was, the back ordered book I had purchased sometime in November finally being delivered.  

I do believe I might do this sort of thing on purpose from here on out.  Surprise gifting yourself is satisfying.  

The item from the random brown box is a book of street photography from Chicago and New York City in the 1950s and it is beautiful.  Like makes you want to literally feel the pages beautiful.  Vivian Maeir is the artist and she is unique in that she wasn't a photographer until after her death.  She was a nanny, living in a stereotypical 1950 woman's role.  In secret, she took photographs - many many pictures.  Since her passing, her work has been unearthed by the editor of this book, John Maloof.  After his careful curating and compiling, she is now a photographer with a capital P.  

Although I'd dare say she was that long before being recognized as so, a Photographer.  A see-er of the world - the tiny and the small and the everything in between.  She knew she was.  Otherwise, she wouldn't have kept shooting.  At least that's what I believe; we don't do things just because.  We don't.  For whatever reason, while she was amongst the walking and breathing, she didn't want to share her gift.  And maybe in a way, that was her way of sharing. 

I love the mystery of that nugget.  It makes me wonder what else is being hidden in this world which will one day turn into a tangible gift of talent and art.  

Like maybe the person next to me at the grocery store is a painter with a capital P.  Or maybe the person waiting in the next lane at a red light is a writer with a capital W.  

It's a rather whimsical theory, and I like it.  

A gift being shared after the person no longer can share it themselves. 

This book is a love.  It is inspiring, haunting, down right beautiful, and gets my full stamp of approval for a choice in surprise gifting to yourself.   

If for nothing else but this quote from Vivian herself, "It's a wheel - you get on, you go to the end, and someone else has the same opportunity to go to the end, and so on, and somebody else takes their place.  There's nothing new under the sun."  

Worth passing along.