Sitting on my patio with a steaming cup of Market Spice tea and my Morning Pages notebook, ready to have “a phone call with myself.” Give it to the paper, make space, find burrowed gems. Sacred time, yet nothing out of the ordinary.

Except for the cup of tea.

Tea. That humble, simple, complex, lowly, and holy brew. So many cups throughout my life, on many tables, planes, trains, countries. Cups of tea to celebrate and cups of tea to accompany tears. Cups of tea to think more clearly and cups of tea to forget a little. Cups of tea alone and cups of tea shared with humans I love.

But none of them compared to her tea. My friend Joanie’s.

The first time I saw her pour tea was out of minuscule cups, showing me a Montessori ritual which she transformed into something part ballet and part toddler party. That’s how we met.

For the next thirty years, she made me more cups of tea than I could count. She would laugh her Joanie laugh every time I took the first sip because she did not know why it made me close my eyes and moan a little. “It’s just tea,” she would say. It was never “just tea.”

When I said goodbye to her last February, I asked, with my eyes attached to hers, who was going to make me tea from now on. We both knew that it was more of a love letter than a question. She blinked once, and then she quietly said, “I’ll send you some tea.”

A couple of weeks later, as I sat on his couch while we waited for his baby girl to be born (she is one year old today), my son handed me a cup of some spicy brew with a touch of milk and honey. I absent-mindedly raised it to my lips, and when it reached my mouth, I cried. This was no ordinary tea. Only one person before had made me a cup of tea like that. Maybe she was sending me tea after all.

Back home, it took me a couple of months to realize that I had lost all desire to drink tea at all. Sweet boxes and pretty jars of mixed spices, flowers, and herbs sat on a shelf in my kitchen, untouched. My kettle was oddly quiet. It was as though something had just vanished. Gone. Without a trace. Without even being missed.

When I noticed it, I was surprised but also not so surprised. She was gone, and she took the sacred brew with her. Something inside of me felt like shrugging and asking, “What would be the point?”

Then I remembered how, after my mom died, I had worn her ring for a year. Her big, quite conspicuous diamond ring. I wore it everywhere and always. I wore it working, traveling, hiking. It didn’t matter. I NEEDED to wear it. At night, it sat right by my bed, and I would slip it on when I woke up. Then, on the morning of the first anniversary of her death, I picked it up and felt a big “no.” Nope, it didn’t feel right. Too big, too shiny, too… there. Something had ended, and I knew not to push past it. I haven’t worn it since, as much as I treasure it. It was time.

I had heard about the one-year mark for mourning in the Jewish tradition. Both Joanie and I have Jewish blood running through our veins, and so, as the months passed, and my tea shelf remained unused except for an occasional cup I would make for a friend, I wondered if this was a forever thing or if, perhaps, sometime this next February, I would wake up and walk to the kettle as I had for decades.

It wasn’t quite that clear, but it was more delicious.

Last week, 5 days after the one-year mark, I received a text from Jan, who was on her way here for a retreat. She said, “Do you want me to bring you boxes of Market Spice Tea with caffeine or without caffeine?” How she remembers my favorite tea is part of her magic. I didn’t quite know what to answer. She hadn’t asked if I wanted tea, she hadn’t asked if I still loved tea, she just wanted to know about caffeine or no caffeine. I texted back: caffeine.

She arrived, three boxes of tea arrived with her, and the next morning, in the quiet darkness of the still-asleep jungle, without even thinking about it, I picked an earth-colored clay mug from a shelf, walked to the kettle, and opened a sealed pouch filled with incredibly delicious-smelling little bags. Straight from Seattle’s Pike Place Market, straight from the islands, the rain, and my other home.

A bag went into the mug, the boiling water on top of it, a splash of milk from the fridge, and then just me and that blessed brew of black tea, orange peels, and mysterious spices.
There were no tears, there were no words, there was no big deal. It was time.
I have had a cup just about every day since that morning.

Last night, on the phone with my friend Hadea, I told her about this. I told her about how, for a year, I had no tea. The Year of No Tea. She listened, and she said, “Maybe you needed someone to make you the tea, as she did. Or to gift you the tea.” And before I can tell her that this makes so much sense, that it was never about the tea but all about the Essence of Love, of Nurturing, she says that she is going to mail me a selection of teas. So that the teas in my home will all be teas of Love and Nurturing (I may be paraphrasing here because sometimes her words are words that come out of her heart and not her mouth).

Humans. We think we are so independent and running on our own schedules and timelines, away from traditions or rituals. Silly us, not listening. Silly us, needing to know the whys and the hows instead of feeling them and living them.

Really, we know. We know when it’s time to wear the ring and when it’s time to not drink the tea. We know when we have a yes and when we have a no. Away from GPS and away from forums and apps, we know.

YOU know.

***

PS: If you would like to get closer to your true YOU, to understand the difference between your Core Essences (the ones we can’t thrive without) and your Learned Essences – and how to dance with all of them so that you may truly blossom – please consider joining me for my intensive two-day Back to Me Retreat, March 15-16. You can email me or WhatsApp me (360.421.1618) with any questions.

My friend tells me about an exercise he did while on a week-long popular self-improvement course in the '70s.

He recounts that after having spent a week with a group of participants, each person was assessed by the group, one at a time, as being either a Giver or a Taker. One word only: Giver or Taker. Over and over again until each one had rendered their judgment. Then on to the next person. This was after having experienced each other in various—and I am guessing—intense situations for several days.

I squirmed just imagining it.

I squirmed, but in the back of my arrogant little mind, I knew that most, if not all, of my mates would have labeled me a Giver. Actually, I had assumed the same fate would have landed on my friend. But no, he said. There were more “Taker” verdicts than “Giver.” Freaking brutal.

Listening to this while sipping my hot cacao under a sky full of stars, it doesn’t take me long to receive a bit of quiet insight.

Just 15 minutes ago.

While walking through the village for a last evening stroll with my dear girlfriend, who had been visiting me, I spotted one of the street musicians who usually sits on the corner of two main streets. He plays a mean rendition of most Billy Joel songs, strumming his (very) well-used guitar, and you have to pay close attention to catch the heavily accented lyrics. Or you can just let yourself get transported away with the exotic charm of a song you thought you knew but are meeting again.

I had been looking for this man for a few weeks because I had a print to give him. A customer had asked me to paint his portrait, and as I always do when I paint someone’s portrait, I make sure that they get a print. But every time I saw him, I didn’t have the print with me. I had started carrying it in my car, and of course, ever since I did that, I never saw him.

But not that night. Oh no. That night, there he was, strumming his guitar, and my car was parked just a block away! We sped-walked towards the very dark, very overgrown parking spot we had found, retrieved the print, and hurried back to the street corner, hoping he would still be there.

He was. Singing with his eyes closed a unique and passionate version of Queen’s "Mama."
Oh, I was excited. After weeks of looking for him, there he was. And I had his portrait in my hand. I couldn’t give it to him soon enough. Because you see, when I hand someone their portrait, they light up really big. They “see” how beautiful they are, they see their Essence, and well… the whole thing makes me really happy. Yes, me. It makes ME really happy. Hmmm.

I stood next to him with the print in my hand, and what I really wanted to do was touch him on the shoulder so that he would open his eyes, stop playing just long enough to see his portrait, to let me give him his gift.

What stopped me was… I don’t know. Something. Something important that came with whispered mind words.

The words said: “Hey, hang on a sec. What makes you think your art is more important than his? What makes you think that you can interrupt him from giving his gift to the community so that you may have the pleasure of giving him your gift?”

Freaking brutal again.

I am so, so, so grateful for whatever angel of wisdom whispered in my ear at that moment. Maybe it’s maturity. Maybe it’s the last few years of being humbled over and over again … I don’t know, but I hope it sticks around because I feel that I dodged a huge ugly bullet.

I waited, my back to the wall. I enjoyed his song immensely, I sang to it with whatever words I made up, and once he was done, really done sharing his art with all of us at the street corner, I shared mine with him. Yes, he was enchanted, yes, I got to see his smile and feel that now-familiar feel-good hit. It was great.

And none of it would have mattered if I had interrupted him to do it.

So when a few minutes later my friend brought up the Giver or Taker question, I knew just how complex that topic is, how subtle. How easy it is to think we are Giving when we are, in fact, Taking.

When I interrupt you because I have a great suggestion that will surely enhance what you are saying, I am Taking.

When I tell a child not to cry, I am Taking her right to feel sad, all the way sad.

When else am I Taking?

I have been asked lot of questions these past couple of weeks. About options, possibilities.
This is something I wrote three years ago as I had been living here for a huge year already. Maybe it will resonate with you.
🧡
***

Yes Way

The first time you hear about it, it seems impossible, insurmountable.

No way you can do this. You don’t know how. You don’t know the people who know how. Even if you did, it would take forever.

No way. Too much. Too hard.
But you want it.

So one day, when the No Ways are napping, you look into this a little bit more.
Maybe you brew a nice fragrant pot of tea and sit down to some online research.
Maybe you invest a hundred dollars in asking someone the exact questions you need to feel less scared, to feel bigger.

Maybe you dare to make a plan.

A timeline.

Maybe you take the next tiny right step.

Then another. Then one more.

Little by little, you get to know this thing and you find that when you talk about it, it feels familiar, manageable, almost friendly. Possibly fun.

The next step. Then the next.

Almost no fear left, just a little tingle of “holly s** I’m doing this,” once in a while. Mostly, not much. Just some good steps, some solid steps.

You’ve up leveled.

It feels good, it feels real. It feels like you.

And the next time the No Ways try to whisper in your ear, you may just answer: Yes Way.