Great big scoops of sleep. Sleep like slipping down a sliding board. Pillowy clouds of sleep to sail away upon. Sleep like disappearing.

Woke remembering my uncle Frank, brother to my grandmother, forever single. Why do they always pick on the uncles? Sure Frank lived alone and was odd. Call it masculinity unchecked or Old World behavior. Every Christmas he’d give me socks, the kind from Army/Navy, often fluorescent, hunter’s orange or too big. But a man needs socks (even boys) and now that’s what I ask for every Christmas, new socks. Frank had it right.

Out back in the early morning it smelled like frost, if frost had a smell. More of a feeling, the cold combined with moisture, the way you can smell snow. Days meant for flannel, the kind of funny hats with ear flaps Frank would wear, like people in the Dakotas. Frontiersmen. That was the idea, I think: fashion yourself after your forebears. Dress like the man you imagined yourself being.

I have another single uncle, my dad’s brother, and we give practical gifts too. I always get him a new flannel from a mail-order catalog and when we visit in the spring he’s sometimes wearing it. There’s a deep understanding between men this way, some foreign currency we exchange. The same happens with my mom’s friend Eberhard in Germany: he always gives me T-shirts or trekking gear and now I do the same. It feels as good if not better giving the gift as getting one.

And then the odd hat or pair of gloves from a loved one becomes a token or remembrance, a way to keep them close when they’re far away and have some quiet exchange. It’s a very private moment, easy for most to overlook or not even notice. But so real and warm, much like the men they were. The gift isn’t the thing, it’s the love of the person who gives it. Most important for the single uncles of the world.

Categories: Creative Nonfiction, Memoir, prose

Tags: Creative Nonfiction, journal writing, Memoir