...the FB conversation got boring...yeah, I should probably creep into sleep, that land of the proverbial dreams, the ones I rarely have, but in lieu of Spring, have seemed to have an entire new onslaught of random dream state ramblings and other such antics. But I digress. This conversation was meant to be about tea.
I have gotten into quite the peculiar otherworld state with the tea, so much so, that it has taken my typing tips out of retirement and back onto the precious keypad, memories of her movement await. Here I am...and also here is the tea. I retrace my steps to a possibly simpler time and I see myself pregnant again, sitting at my breakfast table in the early morn, enjoying a pot of Irish Breakfast tea and feeling so grateful that my life is what it was at the time. My then hubby and I shared a two bedroom apartment with a cat and a baby on the way. Everything being retraced, all of the energy there and memories. But what do I remember? That delicious cup of Irish breakfast tea with a bit of evaporated milk and a heavy body to the tea. I remember enjoying the delightful spin I would have as I thoughtful munched on fruit and planned the dinner meal for when the hubby would return to the cave....such a mixed bag of emotions, however raw, still centered around the Master of Ceremonies, the tea.
She and I have had a rather admirable and at times trying and then exciting trysts within the relationship, but it always seemed to somehow work out in the end...my love for the tea and her love for the cup. We would always meet here...in the teapot, the table, the body, the cup, the critic ready to sing her praises for the full bodied, malty flavors of Assam and the brassy, astringent properties of the Ceylon, so on and whathaveyou. All the subtle nuances of tea have left subtle imprints in all the right places in my consciousness, quietly cataloging the moments where, in spite of the vagueness words can bring, she was my life, the color in the pencil, the pigment in the crayon. Realistically, we would never part.
...But then we did which, indeed, turned out to be a rather woeful moment, though I do not think my conscious mind registered this. I think it, in fact, did not register it to the point of completely allowing the tea, after all it had truly done for me, to just slide through my fingers. How could I let it slip away? I feel it had attributed itself to potential weight gain at every bite, every slice of pizza and every bar of chocolate. Had I done this? Well I certainly hadn't realized myself for it. But oh, the bites you get in just when you thought, is this it? Is this all I can take?? Bamm. Then hits the awakening of the consciousness you already possessed, simply because of the meditation of the tea.
It seems that every powerful, cataclysmic, shifting or life changing event creates a chain reaction of events seemingly unrelated to the initial spark, but all intensely, passionately intertwine...the tea being the central point, and the baby the life change, while the relationship was at its crux, or rather, soon to be actualized some several years later, to the demise of the relationship, even as I dared to continue sipping the tea. The loudnes of the boom, the quiet before the storm, as the tea went in, and took me into meditation.
And from it, I drew the discovery of the name Kai, my son, Hawaiian in origin. My middle name Irish, attributed to my current BF who is destined and earmarked for maybe a slather more, and an apartment whose time is come to manifest into a new space built for two adults in the current financial and relationship climate. Only now we are visiting a very green, very costly, first flush premier drink, gyokuro sencha, and sencha premier. So green, so vegetal, so delicious.
I drink the tea and wonder whether my passion lies in the actual hot drink or in the memory and lessons encoded within each cup.
