Note to the reader of this short memoir: if you're a parent, don't buy your teenager a book on beauty. It tends to scream: 'hey, ugly, here's how to do some make up so no one has to look at your face'. No matter how good your intention is, your child ain't never gonna get over that. Thirty five years later, she'll still be wondering what compelled you to do such a thing.

Of course, this happened to me.

At thirteen, one opens a Christmas present expecting something wonderful. I did, anyway. I was truly blessed with parents who always bought my sister and I a thoughtful gift, something that suited us, and made us squeal with delight. I remember a portable stereo one year, a saddle another, a walkman. We were never spoilt and were grateful for the presents we recieved, and they were good presents, saved for, thought about, handed over in wrapping paper with loving messages, opened one by one thoughtfully and mindfully under the tree. I always had a sense of deep knowing that these presents came at a cost. My father worked hard for a living. Sitting by the Christmas tree on a warm summers morning, I'd feel happy and loved even before the gifts came out. Even now the gift means less to me than the morning itself, wrapped in the glow of togetherness.

When you are young it is hard to navigate strange emotions. The map is unknown, unchartered, unwrapped from it's adult packaging when one knows how to behave before the paper comes off, whether it is an actual suprise gift or an unexpected event that arrives like one. Now, I can unwrap a hundred unwanted gift and gush platitudes. Most of the time I can see the intention behind it for what it is. Therein lies the true gift, of course. My husband, for example, recieved a Christmas present last year that was a model differential for a car. The fact he had just put real diffs on a real car seem to have escaped the gift giver. Still, he poker faced and smiled. Even later he said how thoughtful it was, though it sits unwrapped on the shelf.

At thirteen, however, to recieve a book on make up is not an easy thing to act happy about. It took every bit of grit I possessed to not cry. Was I ugly? Did I need make up? I was struggling with blackheads on my back and my face, and my mother would hold a warm facecloth to them before gently coaxing the gunk out of my skin, a tender and motherly act that made me lean in toward her like the child I still was. But a beauty book? I was astounded, confounded, confused. Even after all this time, I feel the shame of it, the hot embarrassment of it. I look at my girl-self and feel a little proud of her for masking this upset and thanking her mother for it profusely, pouring over the pages as if it was interesting and just perfect, thankyou.

My mother isn't very good at gifts, I know. She's not a gift giver. She'll bake a mean raspberry and coconut cake for my birthday, and she's a legend at bringing arancini for entree for Christmas, but random gifts she does not give. If I have not made this clear already, one does not love someone for the material gifts they give. I hope not - I'm not good at it either, although I bend over backwards making up for it, bringing my son baskets of treats when I visit: dark chocolate, punnets of blueberries, coconut yoghurt, paneer. Food, my mother and I can do.

You can therefore image my suprise when my parents came to visit this week and my mother placed a gift in my lap, wrapped in brown paper and tied with an orange ribbon.

'If it's the wrong colour or you don't like it, you can return it', she said, in the manner of someone unused to gifting. I'm overcome, a little gobsmacked, and my thirteen year old self does not know how to unwrap a present from my mother. How will I pretend, even now?

It's not even my birthday.

As I unwrap it, I see glimmers of green and the shape of it, and know what it is immediately. It's the gorgeous sea glass and wood mobile I had seen at the plant nursery that week, where a gift shop spills into the courtyard. I'd told her about it in the course of an afternoon coffee. I'd loved them, and how they the glass clinked merrily against each other in the breeze, and the beauty of found objects. I could imagine where I would hang it, rejuvenating a tired part of the house and adding interest. A frivolous thing.

I had also talked about how stuck we were feeling, and how little money we had right now, and how uncertain the future was, and how much the house was falling down around us and needed fixing. The two things were unstitched, unrelated - just part of the many things I chat about with my mother, from inequality to bras to cleaning the floor with vinegar, grumbling over our husbands, or a book we've just read. But this conversation was me needing to vent a little, express a bit of frustration and unhappiness. I am the sky, I know, and everything else is the weather passing through, but sometimes the storms are good to share with my Mum.

'Mum!' I say, my eyes filling with tears. I've wholly unwrapped it now and I'm a little lost for words. Jamie takes it from me, finding a hook immediately, and putting it in the exact spot I had imagined for a mobile just like it. I'm overcome and overwhelmed. It's been a rough week in a number of ways, and this gesture of love has undone me.

'What a beautiful suprise', I say, thinking of the beauty book, the birthday cakes, the long conversations over coffee when I need it the most, and how much my mother loves me, and how much these small pieces of green glass catching the breeze will speak of her love long after she is gone.

With Love,

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