Tea and literature as serious medicinal helpmates. I can see that. Today was a day where perhaps nothing could have pulled me from this stuffed-head, allergy-fogged dreariness aside from something as good as a
really nice Tie Guan Yin.
Certainly nothing else was working, not the Oriental Beauty, not the English Breakfast, (Yes, I went there, I was
desperate) not the quinoa-cucumber salad from Costco I love so much, not the warm fresh challah bread with lemon curd,
nothing. I could taste
nothing.
I lay on the couch for an hour and let myself get lost in the undeniable pleasure of reading David Foster Wallace's essay on being on a cruise-ship for seven days, a fabulous thing to read and laugh and wake your brain up with entitled,
'A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again.' Click the following link to the
PDF, and enjoy!
Once I had finished reading that, I felt somewhat buoyed, (no pun intended) by this now-lost-to-us-genius and brushing the dogs off my middle-aged and ample thighs, I went straight for the tea 'vault.' The one drawer, out of my eight drawer locking wood cabinet where I keep 'the stuff' I know for sure is really good, and I felt that window of opportunity opening up as I did so.
 |
| (The 'vault') |
Reading Wallace can only steer one to the best of teas, where Earl Grey might be for Luisa May Alcott, and Steinbeck for blacks, Plath for puerh? No, I do not even pretend to read Plath, alas, I am not in my teens anymore, so how about Billy Collins for all other oolongs? In any case, I brewed that top notch TGY over and over and here I am reconstituted and re-imagined, much like the tight little knots of tea-leaves I've awoken in my gaiwan, into something living and verdant, vibrant and awake, albeit a little snotty and surrounded by used tissues. It's just good to be back. I'll thank the Iron Goddess Of Mercy most humbly and now off to pick up 'Infinite Jest' from where I left off a year ago, or even better go to
youtube and listen to that commencement address DFW gave called
'This Is Water' while I keep steeping the last of this glorious tea.
