Tee shot

The holidays are coming: one if by land, two if by sea. I think I'm ready for them, prepared but not overly so. It always surprises me when people surprise me with gifts. Tautological? Maybe so, but I'd rather be surprised when people surprise me than not.

My new piano student's dad works for a coffee and tea importer and has, at the first lesson, supplied me with a svelte canister of illy espresso. He was also responsible for the aforementioned surprise, which, now, will be of no surprise to you, the reader, as I have foreshadowed it like a Thai sex professional's eyes. [I don't know why I feel the need to have a simile for everything.]

So, the contents of the surprise were teas. Generally I'm into coffee, but that doesn't mean I'm opposed to tea. I like the taste (although it doesn't excite me like the dark richness of some coffees) and I actually prefer the way it makes me feel. It's like going to the Handlebar wanting to order the Ground Nut Stew but ending up with the Handlebar Salad: a little less satisfying going down, but an hour later you feel much better.

So this post is fueled by tea. I don't think the tea itself is to blame for its stream-of-consciousness nature. But maybe. It's a totally different experience drinking tea. And to be more specific: good tea.

In fact, good anything.

I take food and drink for granted quite often. Coffee is my indentured servant; it fills a need and I only notice when it's bad. In the summer, when I'm riding multiple dozens of miles a day--sometimes scores--food becomes a necessity more than a luxury. I don't enjoy food as much when I'm eating whatever and whenever just to fuel the machine.

But when you encounter something you know is Quality--especially when you have to pay for it yourself--it gives you pause. Even in the heat of the summer, when Lisa took me to The Gage on Michigan, I savored the experience. [And yet I can't remember right now what I had. Being a third or fourth date, I must have had other things to think about. The meal at Uncommon Ground I remember more clearly: lamb ribs.]

So this morning, before I ate my chocolate croissant delivered last night by the New Wave croissant fairy, I had a lovely cup of loose leaf Earl Grey tea.

Ingredients: China black tea and white tips (96%), bergamot essential oil (2%), cornflowers and sunflowers (2%).

Subtle. The first cup might have been a little weak (or the milk was too strong), but it still drew me in. Maybe the more subdued taste pulls you in--like a whisper instead of a shout.

I love how, whether coffee or tea, when you don't stir it after adding milk, there are surprise plumes of lighter shades of brown that emerge, making swirlycues and spirals like little galaxies.

Fairy Tale

Once upon a castle, there was a time. The time is now. The place is here.

In the castle lived a family of princes and paupers, ogres and wizards, early mornings and wild knights.

And there was a Lord of the manor, the cock of the walk so-to-speak, who dealt in fantasy and debauchery, building things and tearing them down. No one was quite sure how he ascended to the throne; it seemed like it had always been that way. There was something peculiar about his perceived benevolence; somewhere lurking in the background was a Machiavellian instinct (or desire) that stole it away as soon as it gave.

And there was a princess, having the heart and soul of twenty fair maidens, who visited from afar, stopping for a moment on her travels, bringing warmth and joy, intelligence and insight. In her carpetbaggage were well-worn books, several pounds of curiosity, and, deep down, locked away in a secret vault, a feeling of inadequacy. You see, in the labyrinthine folds of knowledge, the expanding file folder in the recesses of her baggage, the princess lacked any proof of her abilities. So while others presented symbols of knowledge stamped onto parchment, she had to open her bag, show the books, show the lessons learned, demonstrate her curiosity.

[and, in the darkness, when no one was looking, she would spread her wings and fly...]

When the princess met the Lord of the manor, she immediately did not fall in love. Nor did he. This is not a love story. But one warm Fall day, when the turning of the leaves was frozen in time by hopeful optimism, the castle-dwellers took a long mental journey, in and out of space and time, and when they came back, the Lord and the princess were nowhere to be found.

Hours later, of course, there was a close up of them smoking a cigarette accompanied by a sultry sax solo.

At this point in the tale, I should point out that your humble narrator does not play a role in this story aside from outside observer. Granted, observing does constitute interaction (what's the sound of one hand clapping? what's the story without the teller?), affecting the outcome, but for out purposes, the effect is negligible.

What seemed like a chance encounter in the hallucinogenic haze turned into something more conscious and habitual. Over time, the princess flew less and less, exchanging freedom for stability and losing part of her soul in the process.

What is happiness? And who are we to interrupt what seems to be a convenient arrangement?

Happiness is being loved for all the qualities that you yourself love about you.

And unhappiness is being loved for only your most superficial qualities and being paraded around for those qualities.

[Everyone wants to be a little punk rock. And if they can't be it, they can at least buy it.]

So it seems that the fairy tale is coming to an end. And in the disintegration, I think I've made a new friend. [Not "Facebook friend" but real friend.] But maybe a "Moment friend". We may share a moment and help each other through this time and then drift apart, knowing that we'll always have Paris.

a million hours with a stranger

I was in Europe this summer for 2 months. My European friend here recommended that I go to her country, Belgium, and even to her city, Ghent. (City? Town? Standards are so different in Europe.) She even gave me a hookup: some friends who might be able to show me around town. They couldn't. But they gave me the email of another girl who was "into couchsurfing." (I don't think that's a euphemism for anything.)

We got beer--dark and rich Belgian beers--and had a nice chat before going to a Jazz club. We talked about music, and it seemed there were some points of convergence in our tastes: mostly Jazz and Blues.

Turns out, she was myopically passionate about African-inspired music, whether it be South African, Afro-Cuban, or African American. Me, I'm not into folk music per se but start to appreciate it more as it becomes more evolved, less visceral, more cerebral. Hence Jazz. Blues is not the most elevated of musical styles, and it certainly can wear out its welcome, but I think it's the sound, the Affect, that strikes a chord with me.

Somehow, I ended up in a car with this girl for several dozens of hours as we drove from Chicago to Memphis to New Orleans and finally to Austin. She was visiting the States, several months after we met in Belgium, came through Chicago and then wanted to explore the South. Somehow, I had never been. Really, the whole South, unexplored.

And the driving time gave us the time to explore our differences.

We started with music and moved on to life: she wanted kids with her boyfriend (a 48-year-old half Brazilian half Cameroon man living in Belgium, still living with his baby mamma) and projected that feeling on to every living being and possibly some inanimate objects as well. She's one of those women who would have children on her own if she had to. Which means that if she was preggers tomorrow and her man left her on Tuesday, she'd be just as happy raising the chilluns without him.

Having children was never really a goal of mine: more of an assumed eventuality. I somehow got over that feeling a couple of years ago. One would think we could just let our differences coexist, but I felt like I had to defend my lack of significant desire against her assumptions and projections.

I convinced her that it's a gender thing: men don't want children in the same visceral way that women do. In general. We may want progeny for a million other reasons, but we have reasons. The women who want little bundles of joy want them in the way that I want food when I'm hungry. I know this. I know that we all have our own path. But it took a lot of convincing for her to think like that.

And I think she just wanted to share her excitement with someone. Is that so wrong? I was not having it, and I feel a little bad, but I'm not about to fake it. So when she said that she had a couple weeks with her boyfriend in New York (before Chicago), I wasn't necessarily expecting: "I'm not going to drink very much...because I might be pregnant!" I should have just said, "That's great!" instead of "Oh. Really? First month off the pill?" That's not what people want to hear when they're excited about the possibility. At one point, frustrated by other things, I said something like: "Fine, get your hopes up." But really, what's the crime in that? I've learned not to get my hopes up (and I keep learning), but for her, she knows that, if she's not preggers now, she will be some day later. Mild disappointment assuaged by eternally springing hope.

And, deep down, secretly, maybe I didn't want her to be pregnant. It seemed like an unnecessary nuisance to deal with on the trip. (Such are children, albeit slightly necessary.) Also, maybe I was assessing her situation (never a good idea from the far outside of someone's situation) and judging this an inopportune time.

So, the big question--10,000 dollars--remains unanswered. She's back in Belgium; I'm back in Chicago. It's cold, and I'm hanging around the house trying to plot a course into the future (through conference with the past).