Surprise
This year for Hannukah my sister Lucia got us a surprise ball.
It was orange ribboned crepe paper tightly wrapped around other layers of...something.
Rasa started unwrapping the ribbon.
I took a video with my phone so we could show Lucia.
*
There was more ribbon than we’d originally imagined.
Much more ribbon.
Crissie and I waited and watched while Rasa unwrapped.
It took one minute and twelve seconds of recording time just to get to a small white slip of normal paper.
The white slip was a fortune cookie fortune.
(“Shared joy is double joy; shared sorry is half sorrow.”)
The surprise ball looked basically the same size, only yellow ribboned crepe paper had replaced the orange.
*
Rasa kept unwrapping.
I kept filming.
At the end of the yellow ribbon was a temporary tattoo of a cartoon planet Saturn.
We were now at the three-minute mark.
*
The next ribbon layer was lime green.
Another minute-plus passed unwrapping it.
Rasa looked like a mummy.
Our cats were going crazy.
Underneath was an inspirational quote (“Why fit in when you were born to stand out?”—Dr. Seuss).
*
The next layer was pink ribbon.
The surprise ball still looked almost the same size.
Wow, I thought.
I didn’t want Lucia to have to watch forever.
I stopped the first video and started another.
For the second video, I switched to slo-mo mode.
In my head, this was the mode you used for “slow” things.
Then the phone would speed it all up to make the final video much shorter.
*
Rasa unwrapped the pink ribbon.
Underneath it was a folded shiny silver crown.
The next layer was pale blue ribbon.
Underneath it was a gold-embossed four-leaf clover.
By now, three more minutes had passed.
“Are you still filming?” Rasa asked.
“It’s okay,” I said. “I’m using slo-mo mode.”
“Doesn’t that make it slower?” Rasa said.
Right.
I stopped the second video.
It was 12 minutes and 42 seconds long.
*
I filmed the rest of the unwrapping, as I’d meant to, in time-lapse mode.
The next two layers were repeats: orange and pale blue ribboned crepe paper.
One held a polished rock.
The other offered a five-petaled purple flower sticker.
Next was a white crepe paper layer containing both a lemon drop and a pineapple-shaped eraser.
Then came purple crepe paper covering an orange plastic bird-shaped whistle.
Last: red crepe paper, inside of which was a textured teddy bear keychain ornament.
In real time, this was ten more minutes, easy.
In the time-lapse video, it’s 14 seconds flat.
*
One of my personal mottos is “Everything is a metaphor for everything else.”
The three videos I took of the surprise ball unwrapping are the best example.
When you’re born, life presents itself as a mysterious package.
You have no idea what’s inside.
Every day, you unwrap a little bit.
*
Over time, the wrappings shift and change color.
The gifts you get shift and change, too.
You get frustrated at certain points.
You try to speed those parts up.
This backfires, however.
Everything only goes slower.
*
The last part may be the best.
You see old and new colors.
There are more gifts and they’re bigger than ever.
But it all goes by way too fast.
*
At the end of life, you have some neat things.
Mainly, though, there’s this giant pile of discarded ribbons.
That was the really fun part, you realize.
Not the getting stuff.
The unwrapping.