Born For This

I’m still not feeling right from last weekend’s gluten-ing (similar to The Shining), so today’s menu has consisted only of tea.

Luckily, I love tea.

Growing up, tea mostly meant weak Lipton in bed when I was too sick for anything else, often accompanied by dry toast or saltines.  The occasional Celestial Seasonings brew would slip in – I don’t remember the flavors, but there’s definitely something familiar about their Lemon Zinger.

In high school, my pretentious intellectualism (fueled by the mid-90′s cultural infatuation with Zen and the new-fangled internets) turned me on to green tea.  I brewed a thermos-ful each morning and toted it everywhere I went; my chemistry teacher insisted it looked like urine, which made me all the more certain I was on a steady path to enlightenment, far too subtle and special for the untrained mind.

Tea marketing exploded around the same time, with Tazo and the Republic of Tea neck in neck.  I purchased a Bodum teapot and entered the world of the loose leaf while my peers learned to suckle at the sweet Chai syrup pump offered by good mother Starbucks.*  I reveled in the exotic, esoteric mysteries of tea (likely my first foray into culinary anthropology) – the precision, the elements of chance and surprise that shaped the flavor of each cup, the magical and ancient discovery of these dried, fermented leaves.

I learned all the ins and outs of tender white tea, robust black tea, my cherished green tea, rich and strange oolong.  Tea from twigs, tea with nuts and berries, tea from herbs, tea that begins as tiny balls and unfurls into tiny, delicate banners.   I became quite the tea snob, shunning the likes of Teavana and dragging my oh-so-patient boyfriend up to Boston to visit Tealuxe (for some reason, my tea mecca of 1997).

Alas, tea and I drifted apart when I moved away to college.  Everything was expected to be functional, so only the reliable echinacea and clover teas found a home in my pantry.  There was no time for the foolishness of flavor, and coffee was much quicker when I needed a brain boost.

Gifts of tea still trickled in (the replacement for Bath and Bodyworks gift sets, it seemed, as the de facto acquaintance-level present), growing dusty and impatient in the back of unlit shelves.  Each time I moved, the tea was toted along, often long past its prime.

When my Wonderful Boyfriend and I merged households, we needed an entire pantry shelf for the tea we had each accumulated over the years.  In the commotion of new love, tea’s slow boil-and-steep ritual was easily brushed aside.  As we have mellowed, this forgotten friend has found its place at our table – iced and sometimes flavored in the hot summers, crisp and green on quite mornings, fruity and bold in the afternoons.  And I wonder: was I really too busy all this time for a cup of tea?  I wish I would have accepted tea’s invitation more often to pause for a few minutes and just wait, just be, rather than rushing ahead for more, more, more.

And that is where the distraction comes in.  I have again been guilty of distracting myself from what matters, often with a sneaky ally of what-matters-in-sheeps’-clothing.  If I don’t have time for a cup of tea, if I have to press onward and the urgency is unending, I’ve gotten myself off track once again.  Whatever is real will be there when the dust settles, and it will be there even if you look away; it’s not in a spreadsheet or a mindmap or a race time or a calendar.  It’s lucky, really, because what’s real is much stronger than any of those, just a bit more enigmatic in its nature.

It seems sometimes like it’s the American way – push on and the problems will disappear, find a way to escape and you’ll feel better without any of the nasty contemplative parts.  The problem with escape is that you’re always on the run.

(No running pun intended.  And, no thinly veiled confession that I plan to quit running – I am still running.)

*Yes, I know that Starbucks chai is no longer a syrup – trust me, I worked there back when it was still cool.

I’ve gotten to wear my trenchcoat to work every day this week!  (It’s very lightweight.)  Even though the temperature climbed to 80 this afternoon, I’m still savoring the nearly-brisk moments from this morning’s walk to the bus stop.

In honor of fall, I ate something I normally wouldn’t:

I love maple yogurt, but nutritionally it’s a little weak (lots of sugar, no special antioxidant boost like strawberry or blueberry offer).  Today was an excellent excuse for a little “junk food”

I started keeping a bit of a closer eye on what I’ve been eating because I haven’t been feeling so hot (I got gluten-ed last Saturday, right before my 5k, but that’s a different kind of feeling not-so-hot), and I’ll be darned if I haven’t been eating about 400 more calories a day than I thought I was.  That’s almost a whole extra meal!

I haven’t seen the effects, but I’d rather nip that in the bud before I do.  Only two months until my big event – not enough time to play catch-up with mistakes   I made a new meal plan that includes a smaller breakfast, a smaller dinner, and one less snack during the workday (replaced with another cup of tea).

I find that every fall I find the urge to get back to brass tacks and make sure everything’s in order.  I spent an hour this morning updating my budget and I emptied my to-do list (sleepily) before I left for work today.  The need for order carried over to work – I’ve knocked out everything that’s been lingering in my Outlook task list in the “not really due so let’s put it off because it’s tedious and/or thankless” category.  (Ok, that’s not really a category, but every project has those tasks.)

All of my planning has really highlighted that I’m feeling unfulfilled.  There are a lot of things in my life that have been waiting on other people for too long…I’m trying to be patient and polite, but those time limits are running out   When time gets short, I end up cutting out the things that are sort of selfish (blogging, working out, cooking what I really want to eat rather than just heating up more broccoli and tofu, and so on) because I’m the only one who feels that pinch.  Sometimes I wish I could be more selfish and oblivious

Several things learned this week:

• Blackberry users: make sure you close programs when you’re not using them!  I had several programs running in the background (including a game that I played once while waiting for the bus that did not have an exit option) that were totally draining my battery, but now that I’ve removed them my battery is as good as new
• If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.
• Sometimes a little “thank you” goes a long way, especially from the right person (yeah, you, mister top-of-the-org chart.  Made my day!)

Off for a walk in the “brisk” (72 degree) evening air.