I told myself, on starting this nurse thing, to write every day. Again when I began graduate school, again as a mother. Scribbles of Antonio’s first three hundred and sixty five days do exist in a journal, the kind with lines and spaces that I could have filled all the way up to and including today. Five years. A five year old looks back at me, and I think about those 1,460 blank days in that journal and wonder what could be written about them now.

In the East Village, shortly after moving into my apartment on the building’s first floor, my hall neighbor, an older man just about my height and build and speed of speech, very quickly gave me a tour. “This (pointing his right hand across his body to the apartment on his left), is our SUPER super’s apartment. And this,” walking, his small cat trailing behind, down the dim hallway, pointing the same finger to the floor adjacent to the tiny elevator, “is the gift corner.” No further explanation came, but none was needed. Books, hangers, lamps, magazines, art, kitchenware always appeared there. Not all at once and never long enough to linger. The gift corner was the place to unload things that were not garbage but you had no use (or space!) for. It soon became a common process along my years of striving for minimalism amidst a city full of things.

I’ve brought this same idea here, to Buffalo, where I’ve lived since leaving that 7th Street community in 2019. My father helped me install a Little Free Library in my front garden during the pandemic days, and its roof has always been my version of the gift corner. Old mugs, small appliances, I’ve even given away flower bouquets and kids toys. Why not? Easiest way to give is right outside.

I am putting out plants now, onto the gift shelf. Tiny lives I’ve tended over these last five years. I am reluctant, but the reality of coming changes are forcing new momentum. The degree is complete. The postdoctoral fellowship secured. Three weeks from now, the boy, the dog, the cat and I will drive back down to Manhattan and pick up the keys to something new. It will take me time to fully understand and reflect on my feelings in this period. But something, again, is telling me to give it to writing. To remove the need for perfection and just give words regular time. To fashion a new kind of gift corner.

As I reflect, I realize there are stories tied to each of these plants pictured, and that I initially feel sad to part with them. But if I push forward, I ask myself – are they interesting? Important? I don’t even know their names. One, my sister Anna gave to me, and it has never found a happy place or state. Another, from a very brief acquaintance, also finicky. The cactus I think I bought in a moment of boredom!

Either way, I know I have never missed something I put in any gift corner. I have never regretted taking the time to write, when I took it. Maybe I will throw words here more frequently. Maybe it will be four years until I remember. Life!