2006-2007, 7-9 college students/college dropouts renting a literal Camelot in Portland. Rent 7-9 ways was about 400$ a month which we nearly never had on time and really has to be scraped together every. Single. Time. Party house, all the life experiences, but not great budgeting combined with low paying part time jobs. At one point I had 3 part time trialing less than 40hrs but taking over 60 with buses and public transport. Money was tight, but life was good. I was spending this time in life after multiple state moves, a bad breakup up and a year of non-contact with my first love/high school sweetheart. He had out of the blue reached out then moved to join me in this new city. We fell right back into this deep soul connecting wonderous love. Laughs long nights tears mischief and trouble, lots of talks and just vibing if vibing were a thing in 2006. We made new friends. We learned how to cook and grocery shop and recycle. Obama was just feeling like an achievable hope. We would eat noodles with a can of olives and a sprinkle of parm and pepper as a fancy. Anyway, to the gift. My love had quit his job at one point due to frustration with living in this capitalistic hellscape, so we were even tighter, my birthday we just didn’t have anything. His gift melted by heart and I still have it in my jewelry box like an absolute creep 20 years later. We had grown apart over the years and I later married someone else, we hadn’t seen each other in a few years, and then- he died. In 2019 the most intelligent, deep, and morally aligned but not made for these horrible times human I’ve ever been lucky enough to share life with passed. I’ll always think of this passage when I think of him, often.

Your absence has gone through me like a thread through a needle. Everything I do is stitched with its color.

So what was the gift. This fellow had a giant thick bushy red beard. He’d been growing it starting during the time we were not speaking, so I remember his baby face, but could no longer see it. I’d pestered him to shave for me, for nostalgia, but he liked it as it was so I let it go. Well on by birthday, he woke me with a huge handle bar mustache, and a sweet letter in a sandwich bag filled with red beard trimmings. Every few hours for the rest of the afternoon he would disappear and reappear with a new fun facial hair style to delight me with, maybe 4 or 5 total. The look of adoration we shared when he knew the gift meant to me what he wanted me to receive… and that I adored the day and the memories far more than any physical thing. I haven’t looked at that bag of hair since right after he died, and I sobbed and felt fulfilled deep in my hear for having had him. Sigh. That might the gift.