Sitting on my kitchen countertop is a silver tea set. Its diminutive teapot, with matching cream and sugar cups, suggests it is intended more for make-believe tea parties than literal ones. This was a gift given to my daughter a few years ago from one of her friends who has since been diagnosed with cancer. Monthly chemotherapy treatments and spinal taps envelope her world. The tea set, once placed in my daughter’s room, now rests beside the kitchen sink where I can see it every day.
Thankfully, our friend is doing better, although the shadow of mortality continues to linger. Last year, I lost my father to a long-term illness. Several friends’ lives were also unexpectedly cut short. By the end of last summer, I decided I’d been to too many funerals and yearned to push life’s rewind button to the time before I spent so many hours on a wooden pew staring at bi-fold memorial service programs.
I’m old enough to know that if you live long enough, pain is sprinkled among the good. There are no rewind buttons, but there can be a time to pause. This is what the tea set means to me—permanence is unstable, so sip the here and now. Real living isn’t found in those obligations that fill the days instead of our souls. There’s a pervasive tendency to clutter the human agenda with meetings, deadlines, and commitments, each of which bear a sense of urgency and importance. I’d be hard pressed to remember the topic of the committee meeting held last year, but can vividly recall the last time I had lunch with a friend who died soon afterwards. We squeezed in a quick bite together to accomodate my schedule. Urgency is the antithesis of authenticity. Dayplanners, Blackberries, and Palm Pilots have become the barometer today’s society that is fully filled, but, often unfulfilling. So, I’m trying to cultivate more corners of contentment by embracing the present.
The other day, my children and I held a tea party. We prepared the dining room table with our best china, propping the resident teddy bears on the chairs. Candles were lit and classical music was selected on digital television. (My son and daughter wanted Radio Disney, but Bach prevailed.) We sipped some Earl Grey, sharing it with our stuffed friends. We even held our puppy to the table before she made a lunge for the plate of cookies. We giggled and spoke with British accents that sounded more Eliza Doolittle than Prince Charles.
While pouring the hot liquid into a cup, I burnt my hand on the metal teapot handle, so we each grabbed a couple of cushioned potholders. There we were—some stuffed animals, a hungry dog, two kids, and a mom—sipping hot tea with calico oven mitts on. This must be what serenity looks like.
While cleaning the dishes afterwards, I noticed a tea stain around the outside rim of the silver pitcher. My first instinct was to dab it away with the dishtowel. I decided to leave it there. The stain now serves as a reminder of a beautifully whole day. The tarnished pot tells me it was used and appreciated. It shows me that attentiveness matters. It gives me pause to think of our young friend who measures a good day by encouraging blood test results. It also reminds me to have more tea parties.
