In most ways, I’m a fully-functional adult. I pay my bills. I do my laundry. I even put the recycling out on the right day more than 50% of the time.
But I am terrible – TERRIBLE – at wrapping presents.
It’s not a fine-motor issue; tying knots, braiding hair, making paper airplanes…these are all tasks I feel comfortable with. But give me some wrapping paper, some tape, and a cardboard box, and I’m utterly powerless. It’s like I’m trying to tie shoelaces while wearing oven mitts.
This means that when I’m handed a Christmas present, my reaction is often a complicated combination of gratitude, awe, and envy.
I realize I’m making this a tad more dramatic than it needs to be, but perfectly-wrapped presents have a particular kind of beauty to them. They have all the fragility and precision of origami, but because they are destined to be torn apart in a frenzy of Christmas morning materialism, their beauty is a bit tragic. It’s kind of a beauty-of-impermanence thing, like sand mandalas.
Gifts are made to be unwrapped, just like fresh snow is made to be romped in. But the next time you get ready to engage in either activity, take a quick moment to appreciate the stillness you’re about to destroy.
What makes this a beautiful song:
1. The layers. Beginning simply, she builds and builds until the three-minute mark, by which point there must be five or six vocal lines to unwrap.
2. The lyrics. Because they are delivered partly in Szmidt’s native Polish and partly in English, and they are so thickly layered, the lyrics come across as fragmented images. It makes me think of the way that words printed on gift wrap can become jumbled by folds in the paper.
3. The end. Listen carefully and you can hear that she ends the song on a sharp, anticipatory intake of breath, as if she was about to continue singing. Or as if she was about to unwrap a present.
Recommended listening activity:
Lying on your stomach at the base of a Christmas tree, tracing the angles of the gift wrap with your finger.