This has been a rough holiday season because I found out I had cancer. I don’t want to go into the particulars, but it is scary, likely treatable, and untimely. So, I was not exactly feeling the Christmas cheer this season, although I was trying! The Wednesday before Christmas I went out with my awesome mother-in-law for lunch and a visit to the best darn quilt store in LA (link at end), and I came home in high spirits, excited about the fabric I had bought, and when we came up the stairs, what did we see? No, it was not a sleigh with reindeer. It was an ENORMOUS box. My mother-in-law looked askance at it, and I said to her, “I think it is the Christmas Box from Tirian.”

Tirian has been my very best friend ever since we met in Montessori school in Ashland, Oregon in the early 70’s, and she has known me through childhood, the terrible adolescence, punk rock, my unusual San Francisco life, and into marriage. In fact, T came to my wedding with her toddler Madeleine, who is now in college at Davis. To say I love Tirian does not say how much she has done for me, how many, many cards and gifts and trips we have shared, mostly on her part with the amazing cards and gifts.

                  For the last two summers we have met in Cambria, CA for a beach weekend, and this summer should have been the same, but first I was sick with stomach issues (not the cancer), and then when we rescheduled, my mother was having issues, so we did not get to have our trip (yet). On  our trips we do many things, like go in every antique store in Morro Bay, and watch the sunsets every night at Moonstone Beach, and take baths in the claw foot tub at Ocean Point ranch, and we even explore the hikes at San Simeon State Park and of course we go to Hearst State Beach with Squishy the Sea Turtle, but the highlight of the trip is often the giving of presents.

All year Tirian collects things for me, lovely clothes and fabric gleaned from the apparently awesome and unexpected riches of the Central Valley, for Tirian lives in Kingsburg, near Fresno, and she always makes sure to find me some vintage Trixie Belden books because she remembers how I loved them as a young girl. However, this year that was not to be. I didn’t miss the presents as much as I missed seeing T and walking on the beaches, showing her my favorite Coyote Jaw beach to collect tiny shells and beach grass.

                  So, when I saw the enormous box, I wondered. Robert’s back was out, and it was very heavy, so I rolled it up our stairs, and then I immediately called T.

“Tirian! What is this gigantic box doing here?” I asked.

Tirian chortled, and said calmly, “Well, that is the Christmas box.”

I think I may have used some expletives, but then she gave me instructions: I was to open the incredibly big box and remove what was inside. She was on the phone as I cut the tape, and there was a lot of tape. And then, slowly, it emerged, nothing I could ever have expected: a giant vintage Chiquita banana duffel bag, stuffed full of wrapped gifts.

What does one say when presented with a gift like this?

We made a plan to open the gifts on Christmas day, and then with Robert’s help we lugged the very heavy bag into my office until the official day of opening gifts. Then Christmas came, and I was madly quilting (next post), and then we had to go deliver gifts to our dear friends. Christmas was weird because I was fasting for a biopsy on the 26^th, and we weren’t making tamales, but it was good to see our friends. We drove home through Griffith Park at sunset, so it was late when I called Tirian for the opening of the banana. There was a folder that said “Open First” so once I had her on the phone, I opened it. It was an old copy of The Red Balloon, a book from our shared childhood, a film we watched so many times, almost as many times as we listened to the Peter and the Wolf records that permeated our Montessori school, but T had customized this book for me, with an inscription for her “beast” friend, a long shorthand between us based on a card Tirian  sent me many years ago when I was recovering from a concussion.                  

And then I was on the phone with Tirian, opening gift after gift after gift.

There were stripy t-shirts in exactly my style, and peasant shirts, and cunning blouses, and a wonderful summer gown, and even a vintage dashiki wrap around skirt with a matching headband. There was a beguiling turquoise scarf, and a fascinating orange mohair sweater, and vintage skirt in lime green and turquoise. There was fabric to make exciting things, in silver and black and checks and even a vintage plaid taffeta, and there were presents for Robert, too: VW bus mugs in enamel tin. There were even warm and comfy socks to keep my feet warm, and yes, there were vintage Trixie Belden mysteries.

My heart was overfull, and as I talked to Tirian on the phone, I had Robert take pictures, with Harold chomping at the bit to tear up the wrapping paper that was fast accumulating on the bed as I unpacked my banana.

                  “I will have to reorganize my closets,” I told Tirian, and she chuckled. She opened her meager Christmas box from me, all I could manage in this perilous time, and we signed off, promising to love each other and meet as soon as possible in our beach haven. I confess that we did not organize the closets that night, and we basically zipped everything into the banana duffel bag and stowed it in my office, but today (December 27) after the biopsy, we got to work, and now the closets are organized, and the Trixie Belden’s have found a shelf.

Of course, I do not know what is coming, and I know there will be challenges ahead like radiation and chemo, but I do know that I am blessed beyond my ability to comprehend that I have a friend like this, a Christmas banana beast friend, and for all the people who have offered love and support, well, you are all amazing, too, and as I said, I am blessed.

Quilt store in Glendora:

https://www.thesewnsew.com/