Tea.
What does it mean to me?
Tea is my anchor. You know how they say in meditation classes – “use your breath to anchor yourself”.
I use tea for that purpose.
I drink tea to ground and integrate myself.
To ground – to connect within.
To integrate – to meet myself, life – in the moment, as is.
My hope is, as I ground and integrate myself with the sips of tea,
The clouds would have cleared off,
And my mind sky is blue again.
Tea is not quite a beverage.
Tea is a ritual.
Tea is safe space.
Tea is a reminder of the way one is greeted in my hometown – come home for a cup of tea. Life may be happening for me, but never too busy not to have a cup of tea with you. Come, have a cup of tea.
Tea is a reminder of my best friend from school, and her love for finesse. Tea made to perfection, and served in gold rimmed vintage cups that she meticulously stores away after our ceremony, wrapped in parchment paper, until the next afternoon tea date.
Tea is a reminder of my high school English teacher. I can still visualize her in her skirt and blouse holding her china in a particular way, appreciating me for my unfolded shirt sleeves, and reprimanding me for mis-pronouncing “sugar” as “soogar”. Ms Jean Roberio, I wonder where she is! I didn’t understand then, but she prepared me for the world.
Tea kept score of my post-partum days, for I betrayed her. I disowned her, as I disowned every part of me that constituted the pre-motherhood me.
But to every dusk, there is dawn.
I have rediscovered tea. I have rediscovered me.
I have a tea ritual now. I have a ritual for me.