Today someone gave me a bunch of flowers. It was very kind and generous thing to do. The only problem is I don’t like flowers. Not only do I not like flowers but most cut flowers make my eyes itch, my sinuses ache and if my body is feeling really generous I break out in hives. Thankfully today I am so itchy from the new shampoo I am trying that I barely noticed the extra itchiness.
I didn’t know what to say to the person who gave them to me. Is it okay to say thank you I appreciate the thought, please don’t do it again? Please take them away? In the end I just said thank you.
I decided the only thing to do was take them home and put them in the bin because if I threw them out at work it would look bad, and then I felt bad about that because they were a decent bunch of flowers and probably cost a small fortune. It seemed like such a waste and I started to feel bad about being ungrateful.
Then the angst really set in. For me nothing brings out existential angst quite like an unwanted gift. It throws me right in the path of the other. This person is not me. Not only are they not me, they don’t know me or understand me. An unwanted gift brings home the isolation and loneliness of human existence, separated from everything by nothingness.
The day was not a total loss however. I managed to overcome my angst by overindulging at the Lincraft 50% of all fabric sale. I gave the flowers away to a lady on the train who admired them. She went away happy – and they did come in a rather nice box which I kept, it will probably come in handy for something.
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Being, Nothingness and 1000 quilt blocks 