My generosity story begins with a gift.

Tom gave me a rock. A pink and orange and grey heart-shaped rock (one of the most beautiful rocks I’ve seen). I look for rocks. He looks for rocks. Athena chases them into the water.

The day Tom gave me the rock, we walked a wide, smooth-rock-and-pebble beach on Lake Superior. We talked about our joys of the day: the dog (obviously), and being in big mysterious water like Lake Superior (it’s like-an-ocean-big!), and the soundtrack of the birds, the warm spicy smell of cedar all over.. Just to be able to notice it feels lucky. And then, Tom gave me the rock. I added it to my collection. I smiled at his generosity. If I found it, it would be hard for me to let it go. I name objects. My car- Sabine. My hat- Love Hat. My rocks. Sometimes after the people or place they’re associated with. Sometimes the way they seem. I try to get to know them. I make dry riverbeds on my desktop or book shelves, I add them to the garden. I leave them in window corners or on ledges. I wonder what happens to them when they disappear. Where they go. What adventures they have next.

Gift Rock went from Lake Superior (incredible fish and chips and apple fritters) to Sault st. Marie (A Koa built for doglovers) to Wawa (a strangely kitschy and practical general store) to Quetico to Toronto to Montreal (in my pocket while I drove a moving van and my son and girlfriend back to Toronto). The Gift Rock traveled, too, to Lady Evelyn Smoothwater Park (portage country/boulders and waterfalls) through Manitoba (highly recommend the rock history of Meteor Lake) and Saskatchewan (Grasslands National Park- 10/10) to home (Renfrew is a fast-growing neighborhood just north of downtown with incredible bluff views of the prairies to the east and the southwest edge of the Rocky Mountains.)

Gift Rock added to my life. Devotion is powerful. You wish the thing well. You nurture it. You appreciate the beauty. You may ascribe a story to it. Your story may take on meaning. Purpose.

Gift Rock was a very special rock, as I’ve said. I am also aware not everyone would see a rock, shaped like a heart as worthy of so much attention. Focused devotion may veer towards deleterious.

Without harm, I created a place in my heart unlike any I’ve ever held for a rock. I imagined Gift Rock as a piece of a mountain. I imagined mountain-breaking-events- earthquakes, tectonic plate collisions, repeated high winds blasting, ice freezing and thawing and breaking- massive sheets of movement, water, water and more water. Each time I held the rock I remembered a funny or sweet or awe-filled moment of experiences in nature. I imagined Gift Rock holding what I gave it.

Gratitude. Curiosity. Memory.

I didn’t expect I’d let it go.

part 1, concluded. Part 2, coming next.