The Gift

Hello,

The holidays have me thinking about gifts. What makes them meaningful, what makes them last.

In 2007, at the end of my time living and working throughout Bolivia, Gabby's brother in-law made me a photocopy of their family cookbook. Every recipe was made with quinoa, a grain I'd never heard of before that trip. It was a quiet gesture from people who had opened their world to me, and I didn't know then it was one of the most meaningful gifts I would ever receive.

Lewis Hyde's The Gift makes the distinction that commodities conclude, gifts continue. For years after, I returned to those pages for the traditional knowledge and family history they held. Quinoa wasn't just an ingredient. It was an entire cultural system I'd been invited to see. The best gifts rarely announce themselves. Their value reveals itself later, in the life they take on beyond the moment of exchange.

In the years since, quinoa became a global superfood, stripped of context. What was once deeply embedded in place and practice became flattened. The cookbook resisted that flattening. It held specificity. Meaningful gifts demand attention and the willingness to cross into unfamiliar territory. They create relationship rather than conclude it.

Twenty years later, I still refer to that cookbook. And it's still teaching me what it means when meaning crosses cultures and expands over time, revealing itself slowly, generously, long after the initial exchange.

What are we meant to do with what's been entrusted to us?

— Courtney

We can pass them forward. Not the objects themselves, but the knowledge, the practice, the invitation they carried.

The Postcard Project invites our partners near and far to share a recipe, ritual, or practice that was given to them—how they received it, what it holds, and how it continues.

P.S. If you're new here, welcome. We share stories from the edges of transformation, illuminating the thresholds between emerging technologies and enduring human values. Each month we explore one of four dimensions - culture, craft, ecology, futures.