I wasn’t expecting a package. It was after Christmas and long after my birthday. I didn’t remember John or me succumbing to any recent public radio pledge drive that involved receiving coffee mugs or any other kind of premium. I was more than a little surprised when I stepped out our front door to check on the mail and spotted a well-worn brown corrugated box with thinly sketched black arrows pointing upwards and the word FRAGILE marked on two sides. No return label solved the mystery of who sent the package although, from postal stamps, I could see that the box had begun its journey in Sonoma California.

After getting through layers of scrunched up tissue and some newspaper, bubble wrap and extra pieces of corrugated, I uncovered two slightly curved earth-toned, hand-thrown plates – and a card. It was a gift from Rocco.

He wanted to thank us for hosting a few dinners and providing some transportation when he visited Chicago last September, and he expressed the wish that any future trip of ours to California would include a visit.

How sweet and how funny, I thought. Rocco, a neighbor of my friend Lin’s, came to Chicago last September and, after getting an okay from her that he could contact me, ended up spending a good deal of his time here with me and my friends. I love to show off my city and Rocco turned out to be interested in so many things I loved – world music, good wine, travel, baseball. He had already been more than gracious about any hospitality he received from us. He gifted us with two bottles of wine. He brought sweets when we had him over to dinner, and he regaled us with stories of his Chicago adventures (hanging out with a pastor at a south side storefront church) and his other travels.

The plates were beautiful and, as I surmised, were hand-made by a talented potter. (The talented potter turned out to be his wife.) But the timing made the gift seem unexpected and, in light of his other gestures of thanks, went above and beyond etiquette.

Maybe, I considered, this is how the chain of giving and receiving is supposed to work. He came to my city to experience a new place. John and I opened up our home. We offered a few meals and took him to a couple concerts. He said thanks with a couple bottles of wine and his enthusiasm, by sharing with us the fresh way he saw our everyday world. I said “You’re welcome,” I suppose, when I sent him a Christmas card wishing him well and announcing, as one travel enthusiast to another, John and my plans to go to New Orleans for Christmas.

After unwrapping the ceramic pieces he sent and placing them in a perfect spot in our living room, I realized I wanted to say thanks to Rocco. “John,” I called out. “Can you burn a CD from the one we bought from those street musicians we saw in the Quarter?”

I was practically giddy when I slipped a crudely labeled disc into a cardboard fortified photo mailer. Rocco will get a kick out of Doreen’s singing and clarinet wailing for sure.

Saying “You’re welcome” seems to keep the vibrations of genuine thanks resonating. Acknowledging gratitude as a gift itself is no small thing.