tea and eucalyptus

i'm back to the freezing cold south. drinking a hot cup of tea. the leaves are gone and the trees are scratching at the sky, naked and cold.  the sky is a different color when it's cold- it's paler and retracted- like it's avoiding something- creating a space between itself and the earth.

finally, goodbye to fall.  i guess it's about time- it is december. and i'm ready.


most of time i don't like tea.  it tastes like dust, or hot water wearing a mild disguise.  i wish i liked it more.  it seems like something i should like.  in the book i just finished, Little Bee, the main character, describes tea as tasting of longing. of the distance between where you are and where you come from.  i love that description. i can relate to that- it makes me want to give tea a second chance.  so i'm sipping away.


i came from a place of seasons- and when you do- you become rhythmic too-it runs in your blood- craving the change- waiting for the wind to blow in cold.  when mike and i moved to san francisco it was very disorienting- trying to figure out whether it was fall or spring- because when you grow up with those clear distinctions, you feel differently in the fall and the spring.  those transitional times of preparation for winter and summer are important. with out seasons time becomes slower and you have to adapt to subtleties. you have to learn new symbols- like the blooming of the cherry blossom trees or the haight street fair.

zoe spent her early years in a nearly seasonless place.  this place shaped her. san francisco is where her conscious story began. from age 2-8 she smelled eucalyptus, felt the fog in the morning and the sun in the afternoon, the summers were pretty similar to the winters- never too hot, never too cold. there was a peace in this continuity.

i think it's easier in some ways to grow up like this. less complicated. less dark.  less need for the change, for the drama.  life is milder.  you have one wardrobe.  i'm so glad that zoe had 6 years of this, foundational years, glad my boys were born looking out at the golden gate bridge.  maybe it will seep into their blood too.  the calmness of constancy. 

but i wonder about the seasons of her internal world.  about why today she can feel every seam in her clothes, why every touch of her hair feels painful.  it's hard for me to get it.  it's hard for me to not get mad.  i find myself telling her she needs to over come it.  she needs to retrain her brain, to override the signal- to correct the pathway- to take out the boston winter- and remember it's just a little fog.  i worry that if she doesn't re-organize the tract she's laying down that it will become automatic, always something mildly uncomfortable will be read as pain.  and then she'll be miserable and overwhelmed by the little sensations of life. so i tell her to tell herself there is a difference between pain, and discomfort.  that there is a range of "doesn't feel good"- it's not all or nothing- i'm trying to move her into gray.

i get the passion and the drama- i do.  but life is so much easier with out it.  the colors of life are beautiful- sustaining- joyful- but living in the extremes is tiring. i want for her all the joy and passion, even the sadness's will be there- but i want them for her on the outside.  there is enough out here with out tags and hair brushing to ruin your day.

san francisco was a good place to grow.  i found pieces of me there, that i couldn't have all muddled up in the snow of boston and the georgia heat. that external stability gave me a place to learn stillness.  and it became easy to let go of the need for those seasonal changes- the fog and sun was enough.

i sometimes remember zoe as a little girl in san fransisco- running on the beach all bundled up- standing outside by the bougainvillea, collecting acorns under the eucalyptus trees - filling her pockets with that transforming scent- that scent of longing- the scent that stretches further to between where you've been and where you're going.   may it carry her on.