Over the last few years, I struggled to write....to type, to put together sentences. Like water filling my lungs, I was being drowned by words that I couldn't get out. I've tried writing this blog, letters, etc. I have this book floating around my brain and computer, an editor interested, yet I struggle....
To avoid writing, I've been going through files, boxes and found some old stories that I had done, when writing was a lovely secret indulgence...done with no audience, no judgement, just mine and mine alone.
It is time to revisit these stories and find a lost part of me...
I like tea...hot, iced, real or pretend. I like the colors as you look through it to the bottom of the cup; how it looks in a tall glass on the picnic table and the little drops of dew as the ice melts. I like the whisps of steam as you pick up a warm cup and seeing the disappearing castles of sugar at the bottom. I like the sprigs of mint or rims of lemon and the singing sound as the spoon is put to rest on the saucer. I should have been born in England or Ireland.
The best tea, my forever favorite, was tea with my Aunt Hazel. Her tea was almost as good as pretend. My Mom, Grandma and I would wear cotton print dresses and white gloves. Mom would put on her best hat for the season. I always had to have to wear a cardigan under my winter coat, but during spring, I would have a white one with little pearly buttons. Grandma would always put my hair in braids so neat they belonged on a department store dolly.
Aunt Hazel seemed very old to me, but not the crumpled up, saggy old, but like the most comfortable chair in your house old. Aunt Hazel was old in the way that she had liked herself her whole life.
Aunt Hazel let me sit in the living room and didn't mind crumbs of lemon cookie on the carpet. She would say, "My, what a fine, young lady here today!" and let me twirl around so that my dress would balloon up the way you couldn't do at church. One summer, I broke a cup and Grandma said sternly, "OH!" with a big breath and Mom scolded, Aunt Hazel said she was glad because it had been her least favorite and was a good excuse to buy a new one.
We would sit in the living room where Grandma would tell her all the small-town gossip and Mom will tell her all about what was going in the family as if Aunt Hazel never went anywhere. She would sit politely and say, "Is that so?" Aunt Hazel would get out the tea tray, taking the cozy off the pot, and ask us how much sugar. I would say one lump, but she always gave me two...with a wink. We would put the white napkins in our laps as she would pass around the cookies, sometimes with candied lemon or orange. When Mom and Grandma would finally run out of things to say and get stiff, Aunt Hazel would ask me about school and about the funniest thing on "The Monkees." She and I would giggle as Mom and Grandma would look at each other over the rims of their cups.
I really liked tea with Aunt Hazel.
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