A Discipline of Tea

Water is the most precious substance on the planet. Ask any scientist. I know I certainly do enjoy it, and, on the trail, even and especially during a hard-won push, it is ambrosia beyond compare. You may or may not see, but certainly feel, the Divine coursing through you.

It probably goes without saying I do likes me my dark beers, red wines-although there's something to be said for a summer white after walkabout-and whiskeys. There is something, which borders upon ritualistic about coffee with breakfast. My roaring twenties were spent almost exclusively in coffeehouses. In my opinion, the Buzz makes the best mocha in the county.

However, there is something that touches upon sacred when it comes to a cup of tea in the proper context. A cup on a cool morning or whilst watching the snow waft down in the slate of early evening as it becomes an overnight blizzard. Sitting out on a warm afternoon with a book and the songs of bird and breeze. You may or may not see, but certainly feel, the Divine coursing through you.

I no longer recall the exact what/where/when/why?/how of when I started drinking hot tea. My mother was a fan of sun and iced teas, which, to this day, I find utterly vile. I'd drink iced coffee first, and, that is an affront to nature along with SUV limousines. An x-girlfriend of mine introduced varieties of tea of tea other than jasmine. Although, she could never be fucking bothered to take tea with me. During the time we were together this bothered me greatly. These days, I see a twisted sort of symmetry in that, which probably only makes sense to me.

In the shrapnel of a bad break-up and the Machiavelli that followed, I got a little self-destructive with the drink. A deep-seated fear of mine is becoming my father's father; a man whose skin was the color dirty gold and urine upon his deathbed, because, for him, one was much too much, but ten was not enough. It was pulling myself out of that downward spiral of my own self-destruction that I adopted my discipline of tea. To this day, tea time, most often than not, proceeds cocktail hour. The only time my daughter and Sabina have considered an intervention with me has involved my tea consumption, what for how often I might want to skip to the loo.

Jasmine tea used to be my go-to. I still rather enjoy it, but there are so many other varieties I have in a stack of glass jars in my kitchen. They all have certain contexts, and it would be insulting to have them otherwise. I used to say hot jasmine tea could fix anything, even that, which was not broken. The bruja's rollover broke me of that superstition, just as my mother's illness exposed the phrase it's okay for the lie that it is. Tea may be meditation and insight and a passing touch of divinity, but, for all its magic, it is not that kind of a miracle-worker, and you've just got to accept that. Hurtful as it may be.

It's been an overcast morning with passing showers. Meteorological prophecy whispers of the possibility of it clearing later. I sip on Kuan Yin tea-oolong has this been going on?-to start the day. Shafts of mountain sun peak through as we contemplate the day's adventures.

Every so often, I change the amount of alcoholic imbibments I have to make sure I am no where near my father's father. Not too long ago, I went a week without coffee just for something to do. However, it has been said a day without tea is like three days without food. To me, those are true words.