The last three and a half years since I completed my term as director at Don Bosco Hall have brought more changes than I realized. As director I used to do a lot of community shopping, as well as seeing to gifts and parties… hospitality and welcoming in short. Now the shopping is up to others. Besides, I've lived one year in Richmond and one in Rome … and much of my time in Berkeley is directed to the work of the grad students at the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology. In short, I don't get around Berkeley for shopping purposes (Oh yes, I get around: at 5:45 in the morning when I'm doing my power walking. No shops open then to slow me down).
Okay, back to the story.
On Monday we chose in community (as is our habit) the name of another brother or sister, for whom we will get a gift for our Christmas Eve exchange. This year I chose ______ _______, whom I've known for many years now. And I knew just what gift would be perfect! So on Tuesday I ventured out to Bancroft and Telegraph… and the shop I always went to for such perfect gifts has evaporated! There's another store there!
Easy solution: turn around, head into Berkeley town center and walk up Shattuck toward Cedar. I always shop at an array of little boutiques along that main street that carry, of course, an assortment of "the perfect gift". No way! Those very shops had all evaporated too! I needed to stop in at Starbucks for a stiff cup of latte in order to calm my senses and plan a new strategy. That was Tuesday.
Plan B would be to go out to El Cerrito Plaza on San Pablo on the border of Albany and El Cerrito: there are a lot of good little places there. My plan was to go out yesterday (Thursday), but as it began to rain and pour fairly early, I put if off until this morning since sun and blue skies were forecast. And so I did. I took Bart ($1.40), and then walked through all the perfect stores and boutiques looking for the perfect gift… and after an hour was totally discouraged. Everything has changed in the time I've stopped doing all the shopping!
Well, I just turned around and visited all the stores again, getting ideas, paying attention to the people… and finally I made my selections. Yes, plural. It will be a mult-part gift.
As I took the BART back to Berkeley, I reflected that the good thing about Christmas gift-giving is that it puts us back into circulation, back into the marketplace, or into the neighborhood. It means taking time to think of what would be a good gift for each person, and what kind of world that person is now contending with. The finding of a gift pulls us out of ourselves, I thought. And BART quickly arrived in Downtown Berkeley, and I started back up the hill through the University of California to Don Bosco Hall… Mission completed, except for the wrapping!
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