I didn’t realize tea could taste so lovely, when sipped out of a gold metal straw on this almost sunlit Tuesday morning.
I got up so early today, thinking about writing and if I’ve made the right choice to pursue it and all the things.
And I’ll tell you what it’s quite well worth it to see the last of last night’s crispness make this herbal libation look just a tad more mystical than it would in utter sunlight.
There is something so calming about watching the night sky transpire into the transparency that arrives with freckles of the new day’s light as it trickles into our lives, once more.
I sit here and I ponder if maybe there is something to this tea thing, after all.
I acquired this very tea after my reiki session yesterday. Leisurely, I floated out of the door and then to my messy car to get some cash, and then to the apothecary store right next to my reiki place/ yoga studio/ aka my favorite one-block radius in Denver, fashoo.
I figured I could maybe get a plant to make my cluttered, always somehow in the state of being cleaned and yet never clean apartment, have a little more oxygen. Stepping into the store, I took a glance at some of the greenery. They looked so humble and happy and comfortable…well lit and well fed. And far too kind for me to eventually, inevitably kill.
I meandered past them towards other pretty shit that I already have at home and still want more of. A crystal shaped as a heart. A clear quartz I picked up to get a feel for and thought about buying to cleanse my other neglected crystals, oh and a cute six dollar card, too, that I could somehow justify needing…when in the corner of my eye I saw her. She was a little tea-pot who, as promised, was short and stout and yes. Just lovely and clear and dressed in a shiny silver hat. Maybe, I thought, today is finally that day…
A few years back I wrote a poem about tea. The year was 2019 and it was autumn, I believe. The leaves were soggy and cold and I ran over them with my dirty gray honda. That poor honda. My little trash can on wheels. Opening the door, I’m sure about three expired coffee cups fell out. I grasped onto my aderall and head up to the 2-bedroom where Jasper,* Brian* and I resided. It was a rather tiny apartment for the size of all of us. We had a lot of shit and a lot of messes we seldom cleaned.
I remember just a few months prior I had deemed that my dream apartment. And now it was just submerged in furniture, sprinkled with weed and the fake marble countertops which actually looked quite lovely, when cleaned, were covered instead in sticky red wine residue from a dinner Jasper and I had made a few nights or so prior. It didn’t smell great in there either.
Discarded tobacco that hadn’t made the cut to go in one of Brian’s 15 daily spliffs, lay ever so fragrently atop our clunky living room coffee table that was covered with some other bullshit and such.
There of course had been a time when we had all been younger and less stuck and I think more happy. And it’s not like we were old, they were 28 and I, 29. But for some reason, I kind of felt like we were old. Like I was old and also acting way too fucking young for the age I was.
Anyhow, something or another pissed me off, and I grabbed my notebook that I’d been using for Student Teaching, and romped back down to my messy car. Jasper didn’t follow and I didn’t expect him to, either.And then I just kind of sat in there for awhile.
Drinking some car-wine and feasting on Newports and aderal and the feelings of helplessness and nothingness and nowhere-ness that crept through my veins and that just stayed the same no matter how many gulps of Pinot grigio deep I was. That flatness and staleness and emptiness didn’t even hurt like it should have. Maybe I was too used to it or something. It’s funny how we don’t realize what we adapt to for such a long time.
Despite all the signs. I stared at my foundation crusted, steering wheel and propped the notebook back on it and tried to remind my mind that at one point, I did enjoy writing, back when enjoyment hadn’t slipped away, in its totality as it accidentally had..I tried to write something and then another thing and nothing would fucking do. I reckoned I was just out of practice.
Too sad but like in some sort of weird and subdued and indiscernible and thusly unpenitrible way. And then it started raining. And my gas tank crept towards empty. And my boyfriend wasn’t calling and I was fine with that. I really didn’t want him to anyways. Anyways, I sat there and I looked out at the humid, drippy windows and the families running for cover and the grass that was less green on account of my crippling, untreated anxiety and depression, of course.
And then I wrote this poem. It was the first poem I’d written in what might have been years. And I called it my tea poem. This is my tea poem…i love my tea poem.
The Tea Poem:
She’d really like to like tea
She thinks it’d be swell, divine.
Lovely and elegant
Mild, pure and refined.
Akin to hand-written letters.
The ones that she never scribes.
The blankets she doesn’t knit,
The sound advice she declines.
She really wants to want this tea, you see
This has been her ambition
She’d let it steep and arrange flowers in her tidy, white kitchen
She would be present, not distant
Pragmatic in her decisions
Make poster boards of her visions
Care more about her nutrition
She really needs to drink this tea, lately she makes it quite a lot
honey-milk ratios lack balance. It’s lukewarm or blistering hot
And now she’s getting distraught
And now she feels like a liar
She takes a sip, it burns her mouth
She’s wearing low-cut attire
She’s standing in her white kitchen, but it’s not tidy enough
She’s having doubts that she is doubting
About the man she should love
About this man who loves her, and this tea she should drink
She wishes tea could be the cure, and pours her’s out into the sink.
That poem may not seem like a lot to you. Or you may like it. You see, I’m not really sure if it’s good or bad anymore. Or if we can really ever classify any forms of art as good or bad for that matter.
Though I didn’t realize it then, writing in my notebook in my destitute car on that rainy day, drunk and sad and alone, was (I think) instrumental in my decision to blow up my life and leave my boyfriend and move out of that two bedroom, stinky, we-never-know-what could have been if we were all healthier- apartment a couple months later.
Part of me wants to tell you all about it right now and do a timeline of the shit-storm that has been these last few years. But, I have plenty of time to do that, so why rush? It’s only day two of my self-prescribed challenge to write every single day in this blog and pursue my writing career with everything in me.
Because I can do that now. Because I can drink tea, now. Though I do have to admit that while I was writing this my tea got cold and I’m still not so great at keeping it warm. And I didn’t add honey.
But really, I think it takes a lot of patience and practice and just..time in general..to truly perfect the art of drinking tea. Or maybe I’ve had it all wrong from the start.
Maybe everyone’s tea sometimes gets cold, too.
Anyways, that’s enough about me. How are you?
Truly, if you’re still reading I’m very appreciative. I know I can get lost in my words and stuck in a ramble that swirls round and round and who even fucking knows where, some fucking times.
I’m still really nervous about pursuing this dream of mine, to be a writer. I’m really scared of failure, but I think maybe even more so, I’m scared of not failing. Like, what would it look like for me not to fail at this? To not just call it quits before I even start. And to really honor myself everyday, in the actions I take to really try and be who I’ve always only ever wished from a distance that I could be.
Do you have anything in your life that you’ve blocked yourself from getting even though it would make your heart so very genuinely grateful to have it? It really makes me sad to think of you or anyone not thinking they are good enough or capable enough to achieve their goals and access the real freedom and peace and love they’ve always been searching for.
I’m really praying to whatever is out there to offer the same compassion and grace I lend to others towards myself, too. And it’s an ongoing process.
And I suppose, well, that for now, I’m quite grateful for my tea.
Cold as it is and as imperfect as I am, I suppose I am grateful to be me right now, too.
And good morning, to you. Please give yourself a hug and enjoy a nice warm drink.
Until later today, I’m signing off.
xxo,
Stay beautiful, my loves
sara[h]doxicaL @best 