February 17, 2007

• I’ll just blurt this all out — don’t get excited, it’s not what you think — and refine it later for my intended use.  Brenda, I thought of you as I sat down with this cup.

  I’m sipping Jasmine tea, which was lovingly sold to me by a beautiful young man I would have jumped the counter for were it not for my bum knee and advanced years.  Too many “for”s there.  It’s odd that I’d use the tea set for the first time today, after buying it five years ago.  

  I retrieved it from the back of the kitchen cupboard, thrilled at my find.  I’m speaking of the day I found it at an artist’s open house.  She had a shop with this huge kiln behind her house.  She needed it big to fit her whimsical, outdoor sculptures.  From the shop led a stone path which wound through her garden, featuring pots that came up to my waist and odd figures that made me go around again.  In her garage there were shelves with ”seconds”: odds-and-ends that never made it to the gallery.  

  The tea set cleans up even better than I remembered, round and chunky with an unusual glaze that now shines.  We are served tea at recorder group but her set is flat and uniform, in color, and English, in shape.  Or maybe Indian.  Mine is Japanese but with an early 70′s look to it, though the artist’s name is on the bottom, and it says ’95.

  I remember exactly how the young man said to brew it, letting water cool from the boil, having preheated the cup and pot.  The jasmine leaves will lose their exotic smell and taste slightly bitter, if the water is too hot.  The smell is intoxicating and the cup in front of me puts the previously used coffee cups to shame, though one is my favorite and also from her kiln.  I always leave the cups lined up in front of the computer, switching from black tea, to red, to green throughout the day.  When I’m being healthy.

  Last night I went to the library and rifled through all the magazines I used to have subscriptions to.  Beautiful clothes, gorgeous furniture, and luscious food; that’s what I took to bed.  I woke up to an email from the organic farmer I buy from.  He’d listed today’s bounty, plants I’d never heard of.  When I got everything home I wasn’t sure what was for salad and what was for cooking.  So I called him.

  I laid out each pile of greens on a separate paper towel, and, one by one, we went through them.  I’d chew a leaf, describe the taste and look, and he’d tell me the name.  They all seemed to have two names: one Italian and one Japanese.  He’d bought seeds for one of the bok choys in Japan and after only three seasons is still getting variability, “trying to stabilize the genes.”  I can’t remember if I’ve described this guy to you but he is beyond eccentric, and after today’s tutorial I am even more impressed. 

  There were two plants, two different kinds of baby bok choy, that produced an energetic change in me.  I was left smiling and tingly all over.  I suddenly had an urge to be outside.  The tree man came to prune my flowering cherry last week, and while my dog was tearing all over the front yard I went back to see it. What I mean to say is feel it.  When I have the palms of my hands on its bark I get that same tingly feeling. 

  That made me want to walk down to the river but the dog is such a pain-in-the-ass, on the leash, that we turned back home.  As soon as I got in the house I thought of the tea pot.  I wasn’t sure why but I knew I had to find it.

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