The Gift Must Always Move

When I was young, my parents subscribed to the CoEvolution Quarterly, and I recall an article I was quite taken with, “The Gift Must Always Move”. At the time I did take it literally and passed along a gift at a birthday party that I’d received from someone else. I’m not sure that it was a  hit, but now I take this idea of the gift as moving within a group metaphorically. (By the way, I looked up the author of that article, it was Lewis Hyde, whom Karen Schifano mentioned. His original article was subsequently turned into the book “The Gift”. I have read his book on the trickster myth, but will have to check this one out).  At any rate, what moves me to write this is the idea that we now have a bond between us as a result of this exchange… not only because of what we’ve given and received, (I shall cherish my Ann Tarantino painting, and won’t pass it along!) but because the gifts stand as a set of signifiers that tie us together as a whole, beyond the objects themselves.