By Gwen S. Clarke
The perfect gift As easy as it is to run off at the mouth, I’m finding it even easier to run off at the fingers. I have been keeping a tight rein on myself lately, lest what I think to be a well-reasoned response to someone’s heated social media rant is misunderstood—or taken exception to.
Once that “enter” key is struck, one’s best and worst utterances are hung out there—just like motherhood: irrevocable. And what’s more, there’s no way to hit the whole world over the head with my personal motto—try as I will. Said motto was handed to me on a proverbial silver platter after I’d passed a restless night rethinking my heavy-handed banter with a dinner guest. The next morning I called Russ to apologize. “It was crass of me to say those beautiful lamb chops were wasted on your palate.” On and on I blathered.
With his select ability to reduce any issue to its essence, he replied, “Gwen, friends don’t misunderstand friends.” The perspective of 40 years has not diminished the memory of that exchange. Shortly after I moved to Patrick County in 1988, a soft-spoken lady complimented me on a spicy casserole I’d brought to a luncheon. “I just love food that keeps reminding me how good it was,” she said. My funny bone was tickled, especially as the comment came from someone I was just on the cusp of knowing. Later, I wondered if I’d been zapped. Subtleties are wasted on me. Only in rumination (and seldom even then) do I pick up on a hidden meaning. The woman’s words kept repeating, just like my enchiladas. She had admitted going back for seconds, so why the zinger? Then I thought of Russ’s words. How much better to be considered thick-skinned, obtuse, even dense, a dozen times over than to see an imagined slight in a few skewed words from a fellow passenger on this tight ship. “Friends don’t misunderstand friends.” What a useful, lasting gift those four words are! How often they remind me of the giver, and how they have added to my joy of living. Isn’t that what a gift is supposed to do? (The above is an amended version of an essay originally printed in HAPPINESS – now :Making Your Week Happier – magazine May 26, 2001)
